


The Oil Painting of Our Youth

by nilafhiosagam



Series: Backwards And To The Left [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Attempt at Humor, Awkwardness, Bonding over Quidditch, Canon Era, Family, Friendship, Gen, I hope, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Kidnapping, Marauders' Era, Mystery, Rescue Missions, Sarcasm, Sirius Black's Flying Motorbike, Slightly more angst than originally intended, Some Fluff, Swearing, Time Travel, What else is new, but he really does care a lot, if that offends your delicate sensibilites then maybe you shouldn't read the rest, it doesn't fly yet but just you wait, just don't tell anyone, just saying, not all of that romance is of the straight variety btw, ocs are just bg characters chill, painfully slow-burn, sibling relationships, sirius black is a somewhat realistic older brother, slow-burn romance in future installments, small doses of angst, so much of it, summer 1975, the Blacks are awful parents, the Potters are great
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-06-22 10:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 66,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15579480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nilafhiosagam/pseuds/nilafhiosagam
Summary: Regulus Black wakes up in a dark cell during one of the most eventful months of his life, not very sure of how he came to be there, and with only a stranger named Harry for company. An awkward almost friendship is born. Meanwhile, Harry Potter might have made a mistake. Or two. All he knows is that things aren't really going his way right now, and that his cellmate's mostly alright. Mostly.





	1. (Going) Nowhere Fast: Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, there. If you're reading this then you decided to click on this, my second published fic. I'm sorry in advance for the deeply, deeply, cliched premise, and for the fact that this is only mostly finished and none of the rest of the series exists yet. Hopefully it'll all work out.
> 
> Bit of a different tone (just a bit?) from my last fic, but I like it nonetheless. Not beta-read or Brit-picked, and possibly rife with Irish-isms, but I've tried my best. Oh, and not American spellings, in case you think a word looks a bit odd.
> 
> (Currently rated Teens for language and dark themes. Nothing overly explicit, though if you think I should change the rating/add a tag, just let me know.)
> 
> Anyway, hope you like it, and feel free to leave a comment. No pressure, though.
> 
> Title is from these two quotes, because I'm a bit pretentious like that:
> 
> 'Winter is an etching, spring is a watercolour, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.'- Stanley Horowitz
> 
> 'Tis now the summer of your youth: time has not cropped the roses from your cheek, though sorrow long has washed them.'- Edward Moore

**17th July 1975**

Caught in the sleepy, half-wakefulness which comes like the time between the end of the night and the start of the day, the first thing which Regulus became aware of was the fact that he was cold.

 

Regulus was cold.

 

He was cold and his arse was numb and he seemed to be sitting up against a wall rather than curled up in bed which meant that something was very much wrong, and someone would be held responsible.

 

It took him an unknowable amount of time, but Regulus eventually managed to unstick his tired eyelids from one another. He discovered then that he needn’t have bothered.

 

His head hurt, his eyes were tired and gritty, and Regulus Arcturus Black was sitting on the cold, hard, ground in complete darkness, when his memory was trying to convince him that he should have been safe in bed.

 

(He resolutely ignored the small part of his mind which whispered about grey skies and hard stone.)

 

All in all, things did not seem to be going Regulus’ way.

 

Gladly, he stretched out his legs, which were drawn up against his chest, and frowned when his boots- and why on earth was he dressed if he should have been in bed?- almost immediately nudged a wall.

 

Regulus- unacknowledged panic starting to rise like bile in his throat- patted the ground.

 

Smooth stone.

 

He touched the wall behind him.

 

Smooth stone.

 

He leaned forward and ran his hand over the other wall.

 

Smooth stone.

 

Regulus stood up, somewhat unsteadily, and his heart sank when he heard the scrape of metal over stone, felt a weight around his left ankle make itself known.

 

Feeling very defeated all of a sudden, he reached a hand up over his head.

 

His fingertips brushed yet more smooth stone.

 

An icy cold feeling settled in Regulus’ stomach, and he was now uncomfortably aware of the sound of his own heartbeat.

 

Regulus leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes (for all the difference it made), and focused on taking a few nice, deep, breaths.

 

 _Stop panicking,_ he told himself sternly. _You are a Black and a Slytherin to boot. Panicking is not beneficial, and Slytherins do not do things which are not beneficial. Panicking is not_ proper, _and Blacks are always_ proper.

 

Unsurprisingly, this did little to comfort him.

 

 _There is no reason to panic,_ continued Regulus, not sounding at all convincing. _You are alone in a dark cell, chained to the wall and unarmed. You have either been kidnapped from your bedroom in your highly secure home- which is exceedingly unlikely- and then dressed by persons unknown- which is exceedingly unpleasant to consider- or you dressed yourself, left the house, and were kidnapped and possibly Obliviated then. Alternatively, you may have decided to channel your inner idiot, and have done something remarkably stupid which has brought you here._

 

_There is still no reason to panic._

 

There may have been some reason to panic.

 

Regulus pushed all of these unhelpful thoughts- thoughts of fear and irritation, and fear of his parents’ reaction because waking up in a cell seemed like the sort of thing that would happen to _Siriu_ s- as far away from the forefront of his mind as possible, and decided to focus on much more useful things- exploration and escape.

 

(He stamped out the irrational spark of unease and annoyance which flickered in his chest at the thought of his parents. He decided to blame it on the stress of the situation getting to him and messing with his head.)

 

“Kreacher!”, called Regulus, knowing that if he could at all, the elderly house-elf would appear before him in no time.

 

The quiet pop of elf apparition never came.

 

Regulus opened his eyes again, and scowled at the unchanging darkness.

 

He decided to explore the part of the cell to his right first.

 

Carefully, cautiously, painfully slowly, Regulus inched forwards in his chosen direction, expecting to trip over some hidden hazard of fall down a hole at any moment. His right hand stayed glued to the wall, the other alternated between trailing along the other wall and reaching out blindly.

 

The cell got wider the further along he went. By the time he reached the end of his chain, Regulus was standing at a point of the cell where he could nearly lie out flat without touching either wall.

 

There had been nothing of note on the ground, or the walls.

 

The cell could have stretched on forever from where Regulus’ tether kept him, or it could have ended in another wall less than an inch from his outstretched fingertips. It was impossible to tell, and this part of his prison was just as hopelessly dark as the rest of it had been.

 

Regulus was still cold.

 

Regulus huffed out an annoyed breath and then shuffled backwards until there was enough slack on the chain to turn around.

 

With his left hand on the wall now, and eyes still wide and searching for even the faintest glimmer of light, Regulus started back the way he came, very determinedly ignoring the small part of him which was whispering anxiously about the dark, and the pain in his head, and _what if he was blind and it wasn’t dark at all, what would his parents say,_ he didn’t like this, he didn’t like this, he didn’t-

 

The cell got narrower again as he walked, and Regulus soon found himself passing the point where he had woken up.

 

His lonely journey was suddenly made much less lonely by the quiet noise which had chosen that moment to make its way to Regulus’ ears.

 

Breathing.

 

Someone, or something, was breathing somewhere in front of him.

 

Very carefully, Regulus continued to shuffle forwards, listening for any other indication of a cellmate.

 

_Please don’t be an animal. Please don’t be an animal. Please don’t be a-_

 

Regulus’ right foot collided, all of a sudden, with something rather soft.

 

The soft thing yelped.

 

“Hello?”, said Regulus to the darkness, sounding slightly more uncertain than he would have liked.

 

_Don’t be an animal- they’re useless. Don’t be an animal. Don’t be-_

 

“Hello,” said a boy’s voice warily, from where Regulus’ foot had found the soft thing.

 

Something- a finger, he realised belatedly- poked Regulus’ shin. Regulus tried not to shriek and instead let out a slightly strangled-sounding noise.

 

“Who are you?”, asked the boy.

 

Regulus stared down into the darkness for a moment.

 

“Regulus,” he said eventually, deciding to keep his surname to himself until he had more of an idea about his cellmate’s political ideals.

 

“Regulus?”, repeated the boy, what sounded like incredulity colouring his tone.

 

“ _Yes,”_ said Regulus testily, patience suddenly wearing thin with someone other than Sirius, for once.

 

“You know, like the star?”, he added in a slightly less irritated tone, mentally kicking himself for snapping. It would hardly do to alienate his only possible ally so early.

 

When this didn’t induce a positive reply (or any sort of reply at all, really), Regulus wrinkled his brow at the darkness. “Part of Leo? One of the brightest stars in the sky? Usually most visible in the northern hemisphere in win-”

 

“Yes, yes, I know,” interrupted the boy, huffily. “I _did_ do First Year Astronomy. You just surprised me, is all. I must’ve read it somewhere recently,” his tone softened and became a bit distant, as if he was just thinking out loud. “It seems oddly familiar.”

 

“First Year Astronomy? How did you-”

 

“What Muggles would name their child _Regulus?_ ”

 

“I don’t know. Intelligent ones?”

 

“Maybe,” the boy allowed.

 

“Who are _you?”,_ asked Regulus, deciding that that was more than enough discussion of his name (which was a nice, respectable, family name) for one day, thank you very much.

 

“Harry.”

 

“What’s it short for? Henry? Harrison?”

 

“Nothing- I’m just Harry.”

 

“What wizard- or witch- would name their child _Harry?_ ”

 

“My parents, seemingly,” said the newly-identified Harry.

 

“ _What_ were they thinking?”, asked Regulus, finding it hard to believe that a magical couple could ever give their child such a mundane, common, name.

 

(It was perhaps a tad illogical- odd, even- for Regulus to fixate on such a minor detail. He blamed stress and the panic that he was most definitely not feeling.)

 

“I don’t know,” said Harry, an odd mix between amusement and wistfulness in his voice.

 

Regulus decided that it was time to change the subject.

 

“Where are we?”

 

Harry was silent for a moment.

 

Regulus heard the rustle of fabric, and then Harry mumbled, _“Oh, right.”_

 

“I don’t know,” said Harry more loudly.

 

There was something vaguely familiar about his voice, Regulus decided.

 

“I’ve been here for a while,” continued Harry. “I don’t know how long- long enough for twelve meals, but I don’t know how long’s in between each one. They bring me out what feels like a lot. Just outside is a load of cells- they’re all empty now. Upstairs is a fancy hallway, and then a fancy library-type place. I haven’t seen anything else- I think there’s a big garden outside.”

 

“Why do they bring you out?”, asked Regulus, heart starting to sink. It was very possible that he was locked in a cell with a traitor of some sort, or perhaps a prisoner of war- for whom, was the question.

 

 _If I’m locked in with a traitor, then what did_ I _do?_

 

Another rustle of fabric, an awkward pause, and an irritated-sounding sigh.

 

“Er, I dunno. I woke up here ages ago- can’t remember how I got here. They ask me questions about useless stuff- where I grew up, my name, how old I am. That sort of thing- nothing important. They always ask the same things- I think they think I’m lying. They won’t tell me why I’m here.”

 

“Who are _they?_ ”, pressed Regulus.

 

“I _don’t_ know,” said Harry, frustration suddenly evident. “I haven’t a _clue-_ there’s always at least four of them, they never use any names, they’ve got some sort of spell that makes it hard to look at them, and apparently they’ve Obliviated me _at least twice_ since the last time I tried to get out went absoLUTELY _SHITWAYS!”_

 

Regulus stayed quiet, heart thundering.

 

The only sound in the cell for a few moments was Harry’s harsh breathing.

 

Regulus was very much not used to being shouted at- it was usually Sirius or even Kreacher who took the brunt of that at home, and his various Quidditch captains had all been much more inclined to make nasty comments rather than shout insults.

 

He decided that he didn’t like it.

 

“I’m sorry,” said Harry quietly, sounding reasonably contrite. “I shouldn’t have taken your head off like that- it’s just that nothing I try seems to work lately, no one’s coming for me, and now you’re stuck here too. It’s- it’s all gone to shit, recently.”

 

“It’s alright,” said Regulus. “You didn’t mean it, you’re under stress- I know. Just- _don’t shout at me again,”_ he finished more sharply than he had meant to.

 

“I’ll try not to,” said Harry.

 

There was _definitely_ something distantly familiar about the pitch and timbre of his voice, Regulus decided. It was as if he had heard someone similar-sounding years ago and was only now remembering. The accent was wrong, though- jarringly so. Harry’s mish-mash of southern English middle-class and western working-class refused to line up with the shadowy half-memory.

 

Regulus decided not to fixate on it. There were much more important things to be thinking about.

 

“You might want to sit down,” said Harry. “Nothing’s going to happen for ages- they brought me out before you arrived; I must’ve been asleep when you got here. Unless they want a word with you especially badly, it’s going to be just us for the next while.”

 

Regulus slipped down onto the floor, and frowned at how constrictive this end of the cell was.

 

“Why are you in this tiny corner? I can actually stretch out properly a bit further down.”

 

A rustle of fabric, a beat of silence, and then an annoyed breath.

 

“Sorry- I keep forgetting that it’s too dark for you to see when I shrug. _Anyway,_ it’s alright back here. This is the back wall, so they actually have to come get me, it seems a bit warmer than the rest, and the door’s down the other end. I don’t like sitting too close to it- never seems to work out for me.”

 

There was a loud clank, and an odd sort of amusement in Harry’s voice when he said, “I can’t get too close to the door anymore anyway- they’ve got me tied down properly now. My arm’s been stuck to the wall ever since that time I managed to break the thing on my ankle and run past them.”

 

“Oh,” said Regulus, ineloquently. He wanted to say something- he didn’t know what, just _something-_ to sum up the sheer horrendousness of the situation. He had a feeling that Harry was already fully aware of all that, though.

 

“Has it always been this dark?”, he asked instead. “How are you supposed to eat if you can’t see anything?”

 

“Very messily,” said Harry, with half a smile in his voice. “It used to be fairly bright in here- some sort of spell on the stones, I think, because there wasn’t any torch or anything. They took away the light after the second time I tried to run- I broke someone’s nose, apparently, and they weren’t too pleased with me. It’ll hurt when they open the door- it’s bright outside.”

 

“Besides,” Harry added after a moment, “if you’re funny about dirt, it’s probably for the best if you can’t see anything in here.”

 

“And why would that be?”

 

“There’s this _stuff_ in here- I dunno what it is. It looks a bit like coal dust, and gets _everywhere._ I’m covered in it now- I’m trying to get some on their fancy rug upstairs.”

 

“Dust?”, asked Regulus, deeply confused.

 

Silence, then, “I just nodded.”

 

“Why dust?”, Regulus asked no one in particular. “They could easily keep the cell clean, and it would only be slightly demoralising anyway- but it isn’t at all because we can’t see it. So why bother?”

 

“It must _do_ something, then,” said Harry, thoughtfully.

 

There was the quiet sound of metal over stone and then a bony knee bumped against Regulus’ thigh.

 

“Sorry,” said Harry, before continuing, “it can’t be to make it dark in here, or cold- the dust was here before that.”

 

“It wasn’t always cold?”

 

“I just shook my head. No, it used to be warm enough. Not cosy, or anything, but not as cold as this either. I don’t know why they made it cold- don’t remember doing anything, though they might’ve Obliviated me.”

 

“So we, and this cell,” began Regulus, “are covered in what looks like coal dust. This dust is likely magical in nature, and doesn’t seem to have any noticeable effect on our environment. Therefore, it must be here to affect us. In what way, is the question.”

 

Harry was quiet for a minute.

 

“You’re clever, aren’t you?”, he eventually said, voice strangely wistful. “You remind me a bit of one of my best friends- Hermione. She’s absolutely brilliant- reads hundreds of books every year at school, and she can work just about anything out.”

 

“Oh,” said Regulus, feeling both slightly uncomfortable and slightly touched. “Thank you.”

 

“And,” continued Harry, sounding as if he was trying to contain a laugh, “she talks a lot and asks loads of questions- like you. Bit bossy, to be honest, and she sometimes panics a bit when she’s under pressure.”

 

Regulus narrowed his eyes in Harry’s general direction. “Charming.”

 

“Sometimes,” said Harry blithely, bringing to mind Sirius and his... _friends._

 

Regulus sighed.

 

Harry snorted.

 

“Right, right, sorry. Enough messing about- back to the dust. The magic dust. The very important magic dust.”

 

He sounded like he was trying not to laugh again.

 

Regulus raised an eyebrow. “Are you _quite_ alright? Have you hit your head, perhaps? Is the lack of light starting to get to you?”

 

“No, no, I’m fine,” said Harry, sounding serious once more. “Don’t know what happened there- wasn’t even that funny.”

 

“The dust, perhaps.”

 

“Maybe.”

 

Regulus rubbed a hand over his face and sighed, suddenly bored. “Tell me about yourself- we’re stuck together for who knows how long.”

 

“What about the dust?”, asked Harry.

 

“ _Fuck_ the dust,” said Regulus vehemently, surprising himself. “Fuck the dust, and the dark, and this cell, and whoever it is upstairs, and-and-my _parents,”_ his voice cracked on the word, even as a weight suddenly lifted from his shoulders, as if he had been waiting to say it for years, “and-and the _war. Fuck_ the war, too.”

 

“Oh, er, alright,” said Harry, sounding a bit awkward. “You’ve got a point there- _fuck_ the war.”

 

“So, Harry, how old are you?”, asked Regulus, trying not to think about what he had just said about his parents. What he _couldn’t_ have just said about his parents because he loved them and they loved him, and he was the good son who did as he was told even when he didn’t want to and he never questioned them, he wasn’t _Sirius,_ he hadn’t meant it, he _couldn’t_ have meant-

 

“Er, fourteen, I think? Maybe fifteen, now.”

 

Regulus blinked slowly,

 

“How long, exactly, do you think you’ve been down here?”, he asked, trying to keep the horror out of his voice because horror wasn’t beneficial, Regulus.

 

“Er, I dunno. Week or two, maybe? Wh- _oh._ Oh, no. No, my birthday’s coming up, is all. The end of July. I can only sort of remember a few days of the start of the holidays, so I must’ve wound up here then. Relax, Regulus. That’s still a ridiculous name, by the way.”

 

“It’s better than _Harry.”_

 

“ _I_ like being called Harry,” muttered Harry. “Aunt Petunia always said that it was nasty and common- it’s loads better than _Dudley.”_

 

“ _Who-”,_ Regulus’ voice rose uncomfortably high, and he had to take a moment to clear his throat. “Who names their child _Dudley,_ of all things?”

 

“I shrugged. My aunt and uncle, apparently. I always thought it was a bit unfortunate.”

 

“Was he not picked on at school?”

 

“Dudley? God, no- _he_ did the picking on. No one ever messed with Dudley, when we were younger- he was always the biggest in our class and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would get all nasty with the parents of anyone who upset him. I s’pose it’s pretty much the same now- I haven’t asked.”

 

They were quiet for a minute or two, before Regulus said, in a voice which was a bit petulant to even his own ears, “I’m tired, Harry.”

 

He was aware, on some level, that he wasn’t really acting like himself, that things seemed inordinately odd or amusing and the whole world seemed hazy and dream-like, that Harry’s behaviour was somewhat unpredictable, as if he was prone to mood-swings.

 

Ordinarily, Regulus would have been concerned for his own safety and both of their sanities by now. The best he could do at present was muster up a sleepy wondering as to whether or not _this_ was what the dust did, and confusion as to what exactly the point of it was.

 

“Go to sleep, Regulus,” said Harry.

 

A hand found his knee and patted it clumsily. “I’ll wake you up if anything happens.”

 

Regulus yawned- a great, jaw-cracking, thing.

 

“Will we get out of here, Harry?”

 

Harry’s cheer sounded a bit forced when he said, “Of course we will- we’ll work something out.”

 

It was proof of how tired Regulus suddenly was that he didn’t react at all to the false optimism.

 

Instead he closed his eyes and tried to relax against the wall.

 

He was still cold and his arse was numb again.

 

Regulus Arcturus Black fell into a slightly uneasy sleep, thoughts clouded.

 

Things didn’t seem to be going his way, lately.

 

 


	2. Goodbye Kansas: Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to apologise in advance for several very bad decisions and improbable bouts of luck. Also I have never been to London, much less Fetter Lane. Contrary to how it will be described later, I'm sure that it's a perfectly lovely place.
> 
> Also, purposefully not sleeping isn't a good idea. Don't do it.
> 
> (If there is anyone who has been awake for a very long period of time and who would like to correct some of my assumptions here- having never been awake myself for more than a consecutive forty hours- feel free.)
> 
> Sleep deprivation has never made a genius of anyone. Here's proof of that.

**8th July 1995**

To say that Harry Potter was having a shitty week would be putting it rather mildly.

 

At one point, perhaps, Harry had been having a shitty week, but then that shitty week had gotten progressively worse and worse and seemed to last far longer than any week ever could, and the way things were looking now, it seemed to be more of an exceptionally shitty  _ month  _ in what had turned out to be a rather awful year, all things considered.

 

It was the 8 th of July, which meant that it had been thirteen days since the night Harry had gotten Cedric Diggory killed, eight days since Harry had returned to Privet Drive- where everything was the same as it always was, with the exception that Dudley had apparently become a boxing champ over the last while, which Harry thought was a tremendously bad idea- seven days since Harry had last managed to sleep the night through, and nearly three days since Harry had last slept at all.

 

Harry, seized by desperation following the fourth time he had woken up on the same night with tears coursing down his face and throat oddly raw, had decided that the best way to avoid nightmares- which were always of Cedric dying and blaming him, and Harry’s parents being dead and blaming him, and Voldemort killing everyone Harry cared about, thus rendering them dead, and them  then blaming him for this sudden turn of events- was to simply avoid sleep altogether.

 

At the time, it had seemed like a fantastic idea.

 

Harry had staved off sleep by refusing to let himself get too comfortable- goodbye sitting on the bed- sitting as straight as he could on the floor, working on his essays for the summer, reading and re-reading books and his favourite letters, and propping his head up on his hand in such a manner that, as soon as he was sleepy enough for his arm to start to relax, his head would immediately slip from his hand. This usually woke him up enough to save his face, though sometimes it wasn’t quite enough and only the jolt of pain as his chin met the floor could jerk him back awake.

 

He had started to regret all of this around the thirty-somethingth hour of being awake, when he had started seeing sinister patterns in the grain of the floorboards- which were never actually there upon further inspection- and his eyes had started closing whenever he sat still for too long.

 

Harry was incredibly tired.

 

More tired than he had ever been in his entire life.

 

Tired enough that he would have willingly sat through back-to-back Potions with Snape instead of Quidditch practice in exchange for a decent night’s sleep.

 

Not quite so tired that he was ready to face the dead in his dreams again, though.

 

And then, at about half-past nine that night, Harry Potter had a sudden epiphany as he looked down at his half-finished Charms essay and realised that he’d gone off on a huge tangent about what Hermione had told him about Summoning Charms months and months ago.

 

(Or rather, what Harry  _ remembered  _ Hermione saying about Summoning Charms- he hardly remembered more than a few sentences of her entire spiel and had decided to make up for it by writing about what he had been doing around that time (the start of November, wasn’t it?) as well- all in very large, clumsy, letters.)

 

_ Charms- Hermione- Time-Turner!,  _ exclaimed Harry’s exhausted brain, in a series of leaps which made only the vaguest of senses.

 

To Harry, the answer to all of his problems was suddenly abundantly clear- he had to travel back in time and save Cedric Diggory and stop Voldemort in the same  mann er that he and Hermione had saved Sirius and Buckbeak in Third Year.

 

Harry blinked slowly as he thought this over, because blinking had become a very welcome relief for his stinging eyes but was also a slippery, sleepy, slope.

 

He couldn’t ask Hermione for her Time-Turner- the Ministry or Professor McGonagall or somebody had taken it- so where did Time-Turners come from?

 

Harry’s bleary gaze fell on his Charms book, open to a page near the back on the Patronus Charm because of course it was- the essay had been on difficult charms and charmed masterworks, and Harry had picked one of his favourite spells.

 

(What did Accio have to do with anything?)

 

Harry absently fli cked through the book, wondering about Time- Turners all the while.

 

Did the Ministry make them? Could you Transfigure one? Did they grow on some sort of mystical time tree? Gringotts had had a Philosopher’s Stone at one point- would they have a Time-Turner?

 

And then Harry was out of pages to turn, and he looked down, and the first words he saw were  _ ‘Time-Turners’,  _ and Harry was delighted  with how easy that had been because he had lost the motivation to do especially difficult things somewhere between the thirty-fifth hour and the fortieth.

 

Time-Turners, Harry discovered after re-reading the same few sentences several times, were to be found in the Department of Mysteries, which was somewhere in the Ministry of Magic.

 

Perfect! He’d go to the Ministry and, well, they wouldn’t just  _ give  _ him one because he wasn’t  _ Hermione,  _ even if he did explain that it was for Cedric, so he’d have to just take one, but surely nobody would mind all that much once he explained?

 

(Several rather important things slipped Harry Potter’s tired mind at this time; firstly that Hermione’s Time-Turner had only been able to go back several hours, secondly that he had witnessed first-hand that anything which happened had always happened, meaning that if he had ever travelled back to save Cedric he could never have been successful, seeing as Cedric was still dead, thirdly that the Ministry  _ would,  _ in fact, mind that he had stolen from them because everybody seemed to like to assume the worst of him, and lastly that his friends would kill him if they ever found out that he had done something so dangerous on his own.  _ Bad things happen to wizards who meddle with time. _ )

 

Yes, it was a remarkably elegant solution to his two biggest fuck-ups to date, Harry thought, rather proud of himself.  He would travel back and save Cedric either by preventing him (and his younger self of course, because Voldemort couldn’t take his blood if he wasn’t there, could he?) from reaching the Cup at all, or by taking the place of the younger Harry and saving Cedric through the power of hindsight or something like that.

 

(Exactly how Harry was going to accomplish any of these things with his current plan of action- especially when, had he been more awake, he would have realised that preventing Wormtail’s escape that night at the end of Third Year probably would have been a better idea- was currently beyond him. Harry, admittedly, had not thought that far ahead yet, and was far too sleepy to really try, either.)

 

The next problem to be solved, Harry realised, was the mystery of where the Ministry of Magic actually was, something which he had yet to discover despite nearly five years in the Wizarding world.

 

Harry accomplished rather a lot over the next hour, for someone so sleep-deprived.

 

He flipped all the way through his Charms book again in the hopes that another solution would miraculously present itself.

 

He wrote, and consequently scrapped, half a letter to Ron which had started out with Harry asking him where the Ministry was and had meandered to a halt somewhere in the middle of a deep analysis of the Chudley Cannons’  path to the 1996 British and Irish Quidditch League final (it wasn’t looking good).

 

H e wrote, and consequently scrapped, half a letter to Hermione which had started out with Harry asking her where the Ministry was- because Hermione knew just about everything about everything- and had meandered to a halt sometime after he started to splurge the contents of his nightmares out on paper.

 

And finally, Harry found himself staring blankly at a short chapter in the middle of his History book, which he had brought up with his Charms book earlier for reasons which currently escaped him.

 

And as Harry stared at the History book- currently open on a page he didn’t recognise at all because he had opened the book exactly twice in the last four years and this chapter had absolutely nothing to do with Goblins- another solution practically fell into his lap.

 

Luck, it seemed, had decided that it was on Harry Potter’s side, for once.

 

(It would no doubt have changed its mind by the end of the night.)

 

_ Following the riots and lock-outs of 19 49 , _ Harry’s  achingly tired eyes read,  _the Ministry of Magic has since installed a secondary entrance and exit, which can be accessed by any visitor or worker via a seemingly abandoned red telephone box (see picture on page 107 for clarification on what a telephone box is) on Fetter Lane, in one of the many Muggle districts of London. Upon entering the phone-box, all a visitor need do is input the required password, which changes yearly. This latter is a security measure demanded by the Aurors of the time, who were concerned with the still lingering Dark activity in continental Europe and America. Information on how to input the password and that year’s current password was originally available through the Department of Secrecy (which has since been rendered obsolete and dissolved) and is now available from the Department of Magical Transport._

 

A nd thus Harry’s (absolutely terrible) plan was enabled.

 

It took Harry- who kept forgetting what he was doing and coming perilously close to dozing off where he was- the better part of twenty minutes to come up with anything approaching a concrete plan.

 

Said plan, by the end of it all, consisted mainly of boarding a Muggle bus to Fetter Lane (or near enough) under the Invisibility Cloak and working out the phone-box’s password as well as the exact location of the Department of Mysteries through some as yet undecided means. The Muggle bus was to stop anyone he knew from finding out where he was going because everyone was always so  _ difficult  _ about things when it came to split-second decisions, the Invisibility Cloak because he couldn’t actually afford to take a Muggle bus.

 

The thought that he might need some things from his school trunk whilst he was in the past had only just crossed Harry’s mind, and then before he knew it he had lurched to his feet, nearly fallen over from the sudden blood-rush, steadied himself against the nearest wall, and started to creep out of his room.

 

Dudley’s bedroom door was closed as he passed, though Harry could make out the burble of the TV, which meant that Dudley was already back from a night of terrorising small children, or whatever it was that he and his friends did in their spare time.

 

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon’s door was slightly ajar, and Harry could see warm lamp-light spilling out from inside, hear the quiet rustle of fabric as something or other was adjusted. There was no talking which meant that it was likely just his aunt in there, Uncle Vernon not being the sort to adjust anything with a quiet rustle of fabric.

 

Where  _ was  _ Uncle Vernon?

 

Harry had just made it to the top of the stairs, intent on retrieving his trunk from the cupboard down below, when Uncle Vernon’s presence made itself known by the muted thud of the sitting room door being shut, a quiet grunt, and then the creaking of carpet-covered floorboards as Vernon Dursley started for the stairs.

 

Harry scurried past the stairs and hid himself in the bathroom, closing the door behind him and leaving the light on. Hopefully, his uncle would think it was just Dudley’s nightly trip to the loo.

 

Harry dawdled in the Dursleys’ pristine bathroom for what felt like an entire life-time, listening to the protesting groans of the stairs and the quiet dripping of the bath tap which his uncle had never quite gotten around to fixing and Harry had thankfully never been tasked with repairing.

 

He carefully avoided looking in the mirror or at his reflection in the taps during this time, because exhaustion wasn’t a good look on anyone, and lightly drummed his fingers on the side of the sink in an attempt to keep himself occupied, having learned from experience just how easy it was to doze off standing up.

 

It was just as the fluorescent bathroom light was starting to make Harry feel a bit sick and he was beginning to wonder if Uncle Vernon had gone to bed long ago and Harry had in fact fallen asleep and missed it, that he heard his uncle say to the bathroom door, “Goodnight, Dudley.”

 

Praying that he wouldn’t be found out immediately, Harry merely grunted loudly in response, holding perfectly still.

 

Uncle Vernon’s heavy footfalls retreated down the hall to his and Aunt Petunia’s room. The door was opened, Aunt Petunia said something quiet, and then the door closed again before Harry could even try to make out what Uncle Vernon rumbled in reply.

 

Harry waited in the bathroom for another few minutes before he flushed the toilet, ran the tap for a second or two, and then left the room, clicking the light off as he went.

 

He moved towards Dudley’s bedroom as loudly as he dared without disturbing his cousin, then crept towards his own door as silently as he could, and opened and closed it.

 

Harry stayed stock-still in the hallway and counted to thirty in his head.

 

No one came out to catch Harry outside of his room or accuse him of nefarious deeds and bad intentions by the time he got to twenty-five, so he felt that he was safe enough.

 

Harry left his door slightly ajar in case his hands were going to be full, quickly toed off his shoes and tucked them in out of the way, and then stole towards the staircase in his socks.

 

Very, very, carefully, Harry picked his way down the stairs, heart hammering every time there was an unexpected creak.  Once upon a time, he might have been able to make this trip in near-silence, but exhaustion and time away at Hogwarts had dulled Harry’s memory of where exactly the noisiest parts of Privet Drive were, and as such he was left with only the knowledge that the stairs were creaky, and that the second-last one was the worst.

 

He jumped down from the third step from the bottom in order to avoid said-loudest step, and only stumbled slightly.

 

Harry stood in silence for a moment at the foot of the stairs, listening intently for any Dursley activity upstairs and indulging in a few slow blinks.

 

The only sound was the ticking of a clock from somewhere or other, and Harry’s own heart. He was in the clear, for now.

 

Working carefully and quickly, Harry fiddled around with the lock on the cupboard under the stairs with one of Aunt Petunia’s hairpins, pilfered from her dressing table long ago. The padlock clicked open soon enough; Harry had become reasonably adept at picking locks after nearly fourteen years with the Dursleys.

 

The cupboard under the stairs seemed smaller than he remembered it being; it always did.

 

Crammed in on top of the narrow mattress he could still remember sleeping on was Harry’s school trunk, which had been stuffed away ignominiously as soon as he had returned from the train station last week- as if by doing so magic itself would simply wink out of existence and stop troubling the Dursleys with its quiet presence.

 

Harry hesitated for a moment and then decided that, given how many as yet unrefined aspects there were to his plan, it would probably be best to bring the entire trunk up the stairs with him.

 

(As quite a lot of things were doing lately, it completely slipped Harry’s tired mind that the trunk was heavy and unwieldy- more trouble than it was worth, if he was going to lug it up the stairs- and that anything he could possibly need would probably fit in a small bag, if not his pockets.)

 

_Alright Harry, you can do this. Grab the sides, lean down- should you bend your knees? Hermione said something or other about that once- deep breath, and-_

 

Harry lifted his trunk up, staggered a few steps to the left, and then thumped it down onto the carpet as gently and quietly as he could, breathing hard and arms already protesting.

 

He locked the cupboard back up, made to lift the trunk by its handles again, and then paused, thinking it over.

 

And then Harry had what would be, under normal circumstances, something that even he would recognise as a Very Bad Idea.

 

These were not normal circumstances, however, and lack of sleep has never made a genius of anyone.

 

It didn’t occur to Harry, in that moment, that it was the 8th of _July,_ and that he was currently surrounded by Muggles, with not another Wizard for miles.

 

As such, it made perfect sense for Harry to pull his wand out of his back pocket (where it had been residing since summer began) and levitate his trunk up the stairs.

 

(Unbeknownst to Harry, a small instrument in the Improper Use of Magic Office went off just as he finished whispering the spell and flicked his wand at his trunk. Also unbeknownst to Harry was that, for once, there was nobody there to see this and send a politely-worded letter of warning to 4 Privet Drive- Mafalda Hopkirk could do none of these things at that particular moment in time as she was currently comforting her sobbing co-worker in the toilets, after a particularly sudden and especially nasty break-up by Howler.)

 

Having not quite taken full leave of his senses, Harry hurried the floating trunk up the stairs at maximum stealth speed, praying fervently to whatever higher powers that might have been watching that one of his relatives wouldn’t decide that this precise moment was the perfect time to use the bathroom.

 

Luck was still on Harry’s side, and he made it to his bedroom without any such thing occurring.

 

It was only when he was sitting on his bed and staring at the trunk- Hedwig watching him from the other side of the room with jewel-bright eyes- that comprehension dawned on Harry as quickly and gently as a bucket of water over the head.

 

Harry felt like kicking himself.

 

_You stupid,_ stupid- _right, fine, whatever. Deep breath Harry; time to be smart for once. You can panic once you’re on the bus and too far away from the Dursleys for them to kill you over an owl arriving._

 

Harry crawled under the bed and lifted up the loose floorboard which protected his greatest treasures, alongside a sweet or two. He completely cleared out the hidden space and replaced the floorboard.

 

His next course of action was to open his trunk, leave his Invisibility Cloak on the bed behind him, and attempt to stuff said treasures inside, as well as his half-written Charms essay and his Charms and History books. When the trunk (unsurprisingly) refused to close properly, Harry decided that the most logical thing to do would be to completely empty the trunk, forgetting in that moment that he was trying to get away from here as quickly as he could.

 

The assorted rubbish which had settled at the bottom of his trunk over the years- sweet wrappers, broken quills, and the like- Harry decided, could be hidden under his bed, alongside (after a moment of brief internal debate) several old pairs of socks and his least favourite clothes (which was most of them). After all, it made far more sense to have his uniform and the nice, warm, jumpers Mrs Weasley had made him than a holey t-shirt which didn’t fit him properly or jeans which were suspiciously stained and still too long. He would come back for them- Aunt Petunia would never need to know.

 

Then, without any sort of consideration or attempt at organisation, Harry shoved all of his textbooks (from First Year to Fourth which, admittedly, might have been a tad excessive) into his trunk, then covered that in his quills, ink, a few rolls of parchment, his Potions kit and Astronomy telescope, then his uniform, decent shirt number one, decent shirt number two, best pair of jeans, Weasley jumpers, and his Firebolt, and finally the Marauder’s Map, his photo album, sweets for him and a handful of treats for Hedwig, and his most recent letters from Ron, Hermione, and Sirius.

 

The trunk stayed shut this time. (Just about.)

 

Harry- a fresh wave of panic washing over him as he suddenly remembered that he was due to receive a letter at any moment- reasoned that as he was already in trouble with the Ministry tonight, he might as well get into more trouble. All going well, he would never have had cause to get into trouble in the first place, or else the Ministry would forgive him- it was all for a good cause, after all.

 

With all this is mind, Harry got his wand back out, wracked his brains for the right spell, and then said “Diminuendo” to his trunk. The trunk responded by obligingly shrinking in size until it was small enough to fit into the pocket of his jacket with relative ease, and then seemed to think at the last moment that Harry was a bit of a tosser and as such, shrank well past the point Harry had envisaged until it was as small as a particularly clunky pendant, or a rather large locket.

 

Harry frowned at the trunk and then at his wand, before Hedwig let out a soft hoot and brought him back to the present and the (absolutely terrible) plan.

 

Harry picked the trunk up carefully, and then spied an old shoelace on the floor by the wall. He threaded it through one of the trunk’s now miniscule handles, and then put it around his neck, roughly knotting the ends together. It probably looked more than slightly strange and would never catch on as being fashionable, but Harry couldn’t find it in him to care.

 

And then Harry had his shoes pulled on and the Cloak around his shoulders and his wand back in his pocket and all that was left to do was let Hedwig out and quietly convince her to go pay Ron a visit until he came back because it was going to be hard enough to stay undetected on the bus as it was, let alone with an owl following him around.

 

“C’mon, Hedwig,” whispered Harry, opening the window. “Out you go- you can go stay with Ron for a bit, yeah?”

 

Hedwig ruffled her feathers, regarded him in the way that cats sometimes do when they seem to be implying that you are remarkably unintelligent, and then flew over to the window- only to land on Harry’s shoulder and start picking at his hair with her beak.

 

It was slightly painful, because Hedwig didn’t know how to be especially gentle- what with being an owl- and her talons were digging into Harry’s shoulder, and he  _ knew  _ that he should shoo her off and tell her to go to the Burrow, but there was something oddly affectionate about the gesture and Harry (who had been rather starved of affection both in general and particularly since arriving back in Little Whinging) knew that he wouldn’t be able to do it.

 

“Fine,” he muttered, closing the window.

 

Hedwig shifted around slightly but otherwise stayed going with her self-appointed task.

 

Harry sighed, and told her, “You’re going to have to stay still and quiet under the Cloak, just so you know.”

 

Hedwig didn’t give any indication that she had heard, or that she cared at all.

 

She didn’t seem to care all that much when Harry threw the Cloak up over his head (and her) either.

 

And then all of a sudden, Harry was closing the bedroom door behind him and once more creeping down the stairs, trying to ignore the occasional hard tug on his hair, and the feathers which were tickling the side of his face.

 

Harry took the house keys from the low table in the hall where Uncle Vernon usually left them and unlocked the front door, wincing at how loudly the movement inside the lock seemed to echo through the hallway.

 

He stepped out, and had a quick look around. There were no neighbours present to see the Dursleys’ front door open and close itself, or see the letter-box open in order to let the floating house keys back in.

 

Harry cringed at the jingle the keys made when they hit the doormat, and hoped (rather futilely) that his aunt and uncle wouldn’t be too annoyed by the obvious proof of his having left the house at night.

 

And then Harry turned around and left Privet Drive behind, left Magnolia Crescent behind, and after he got onto the first bus to London- driven by a rather miserable-looking man and with only three other passengers- left Little Whinging and Surrey behind.

 

Harry settled in at the very back of the bus, one hand trying to soothe Hedwig who did not approve of bus journeys, apparently, and the other desperately holding his Cloak in place for what looked to be a very long, very tiring, trip.

 

And so it was that Harry James Potter set out on a warm, quiet, July night on a bus which smelled like cigarettes and piss in an attempt to save an innocent life and right a terrible wrong- a disgruntled owl squirming around on his lap all the while.

 

 


	3. (Going) Nowhere Fast: Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regulus is perhaps a touch more tearful than the average fourteen year old boy. He has A Lot Of Feelings.
> 
> Also, use of the word 'mudblood' and blatant sneering in this chapter. I'm sorry. If it's any consolation, he'll get over it. Eventually.

**18th July 1975**

When Regulus opened his eyes, he was still in the cold, dark, cell.

 

He was also, apparently, pinning his cellmate’s bony legs against the wall.

 

“Oh, thank God,” gasped Harry, as Regulus groggily sat up straight. Hands clumsily bumped against Regulus before finding their way to Harry’s legs, in an attempt to rub life back into them.

 

“No offence, but you were like a bag of bricks- I think that wall’s permanently printed on me now,” said Harry.

 

Regulus rubbed blearily at his face, groaned, and then wrinkled his nose at the still-present darkness. “How long was I asleep for? My mouth tastes like something died in it.”

 

Harry huffed out a dark laugh. “Get used to it- there aren’t any toothbrushes down here.”

 

A thought occurred to Regulus then- an especially horrible thought. “Harry- Harry are there any toilets down here? They _do_ let us go to the toilet, don’t they?”

 

There was a muted clanking from Harry’s corner. Regulus thought he might have been shifting around slightly.

 

“I can’t remember when I last went,” came the eventual, quiet answer. If a voice could flush embarrassedly then that was surely what Harry’s was doing right now. “Haven’t had to since I got here- I think there’s something in the food. Or maybe it’s the dust.”

 

Regulus scowled, a surge of annoyance drowning out any sort of fear that he might have felt at the idea of eating food which had been tampered with. “So not only are we chained to the wall like _animals-_ in the dark, mind- but they’ve decided to do God only knows what to our food and digestive systems? I’ll be back- there’s no doubt about that.”

 

“So will I,” said Harry, voice hard. “They’ve been holding other people down here- I’ve seen them once or twice. One of the girls used to scream all the time- nothing else, just scream. I’ll break more than noses next time.”

 

Something bitter rose up in Regulus’ throat. He swallowed it back down.

 

“Let’s talk about something else,” he said, in one of the clumsiest topic-changes known to mankind. Father would have had a fit if he had heard.

 

“Yeah, alright. What year are you in?”

 

“I’m going into Fourth Year- I’ll be fifteen after Christmas.”

 

“Oh. You’re only a year below me then. You’re not in Gryffindor, are you?”

 

“No,” said Regulus, shortly and perhaps a touch too harshly.

 

If Harry noticed the sudden sharpness to Regulus’ voice, he didn’t let on.

 

“Oh, good. It’d be a bit embarrassing if you were- I can’t remember anyone called _Regulus_ from school.”

 

“You’re a Gryffindor, then?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“We must move in very different circles, then, The only Gryffindor I know is my brother, but we don’t really talk anymore. I don’t think we’ve been very close at all since he started rubbing elbows with the blood traitors and Mudbloods.”

 

There was a pause, and Harry’s voice had a definite edge to it when he asked, “What did you just say?”

 

Regulus frowned at the darkness, the sickening feeling of falling swooping in his stomach. “That he’s friends with blood traitors and Mudbloods.”

 

“ _Don’t call them that.”_

 

Harry’s fist suddenly collided with Regulus’ thigh in a move which might have hurt more if it had been a few inches to Regulus’ right.

 

As it was, Regulus inhaled sharply and glared in Harry’s general direction.

 

“What, are _you_ a Mudblood?”, he sneered, heart sinking horribly. _Of course_ he was trapped with a Mudblood, it couldn’t _possibly_ have been someone of suitable breeding.

 

(Regulus tried very hard then to ignore the slightly guilty feeling in his chest, and the small voice at the back of his mind which sounded oddly like Sirius. The Sirius-voice muttered some rot about bigotry and giving people a chance and echoed suddenly with the still-fresh _‘a load of tossers who, for all that they’re too proud to mix with anyone, are perfectly happy to kiss some snakey fascist’s arse!’_ Fucking Sirius.)

 

“No,” said Harry, voice nearly unrecognisably harsh. “But my mum was, and so’s one of my best friends, and they’re _people_ Regulus- just as good as you. I bet they’re better, actually, and that’s why you’re such a tosser about it.”

 

There was a brief beat of silence, before Harry added irritably, “And it’s Muggleborn, you arsehole.”

 

There was then a very long moment in which Regulus considered hitting his cellmate, consequences and alliances be damned.

 

The moment passed.

 

“You’re an idiot, Harry,” said Regulus, forcefully calm. “You’re an idiot and I think you’re wrong about this, but let’s not argue over it right now, hmm? It’s just the two of us in here and all of _them_ out there, and I’d rather not have to fight them on my own.”

 

After half a second of hesitation, Regulus added snidely, “I don’t think you’d want to either, what with how well that’s gone for you before.”

 

Harry made a very aggravated sound.

 

“ _Fine,”_ he muttered, sounding as if it pained him to speak. “Let’s just pretend that none of this happened until we get out of here- you’re alright when you’re not being a pillock.”

 

“Likewise,” said Regulus, trying to imitate the lofty tones his mother used whenever she was forced to put up with the _‘less than ideal’_ in public. (He wondered, suddenly, if she would think that Harry was _‘less than ideal’,_ and then wondered why he cared.)

 

Harry didn’t say anything else for a long while, leaving Regulus to quietly fume by himself.

 

He almost convulsively clenched his fists- nails digging into his palms- and squeezed his eyes shut, teeth bared at the wall.

 

Regulus sat there for what felt like half a life-time trying to swallow down his anger at the situation and Harry and  _Sirius-_ and couldn’t he be a bloody captive without Sirius bollocksing it up for him?- because anger wasn’t currently beneficial, Regulus, and he was still a Slytherin and a Black to boot which meant that he could never do anything that wasn’t  _proper_ or didn’t benefit him.

 

(And if he wound up swallowing down a few desperate, overwhelmed, and more than slightly scared sobs too, then that was nobody’s business but his own, thank you very much.)

 

Eventually Regulus found himself blinking tired, gritty, eyes at the wall and wrinkling his nose at the constant darkness.

 

Harry still hadn’t said anything- hadn’t moved, even. If it hadn’t been for his quiet breathing Regulus wouldn’t have known he was still there.

 

“You remind me a bit of my brother,” said Regulus before he could stop himself.

 

“Do I?”

 

Harry still sounded vaguely annoyed but not as if he was considering punching Regulus in the next few minutes, which was progress.

 

“Yes,” said Regulus, trying in vain to find a slightly more comfortable patch of ground. His entire backside was numb.

 

“He’s a Gryffindor, like I said,” he elaborated after a moment. “He’s always sticking up for people and arguing with our parents. The thing is, though, I don’t think he means everything he says- I think some of it’s just to make Mother and Father angry. You mean it though, don’t you? You mean all of it.”

 

“Yeah,” said Harry, before clearing his throat. “Yeah, I do.”

 

An awkward moment of silence.

 

“D’you like Quidditch?”, asked Harry in what was another one of the clumsiest topic changes known to mankind.

 

Regulus was grateful for it nonetheless.

 

“Yes- I really, really, like it actually. It’s always very exciting to watch, but in an odd way it’s very relaxing when you play it yourself, Bludgers and other people hurtling around below you notwithstanding.”

 

“I think,” said Harry slowly, “I know exactly what you mean. I saw the last World Cup final and it was fantastic and everything, but when I’m in the air the only problems I’ve got are whether or not I can catch the Snitch and trying not to end up in the Hospital Wing again.”

 

“Yes,” said Regulus, nodding in an enthusiastic if uncouth manner. “That’s _exactly_ what I mean- of course it’s an adrenaline rush, but everything’s so much simpler up there. You’re a Seeker?”

 

“Yeah,” said Harry, sounding almost proud. “Have been for a while now. Are you?”

 

“Yes- I had wanted to be a Chaser at first, but they said I wasn’t tall enough compared to the rest of the team. It’s been a while though- I think I’d get Chaser if I tried again this year. I’m just not sure if I’d want to.”

 

“I’ve always been a Seeker,” said Harry. “It was the only position empty the first year, and Wood would never have let me swap after that for fear of ruining his game plans. I’d never switch to anything else though- I don’t think it’d really be the same.”

 

Regulus hummed in agreement and then they went quiet again. The silence was much more comfortable this time.

 

A thought came to Regulus then, and he absently played with a loose thread he’d found on his cuff as he mulled it over.

 

If Harry was a Gryffindor in the year above him, then he and Sirius  _had_ to at least know of each other, even if they weren’t friendly. Had Sirius ever said anything about  _him?_ Would Harry be sympathetic to Sirius Black’s little brother or would he just turn his nose up at a Slytherin Black?

 

There was a soft pop then, reminiscent of a house-elf.

 

Regulus stiffened, hope starting to stir in his chest.

 

Said hope was crushed as soon as Harry said, “That’ll be dinner- it’s down by the door. C’mon, I’m starving.”

 

“Oh,” said Regulus, who was also starving. “Alright.”

 

Regulus stood up, relying heavily on the wall and wincing as muscles stretched out again and things popped and moved. He couldn’t feel anything in his legs but the sudden rush of pins and needles and possibly the floor beneath him. It was a very unpleasant experience.

 

Regulus limped towards the wide end of the cell again, Harry clunking after him. Harry’s chains seemed much noisier than his own.

 

‘Dinner’ turned out to be a bowl of something or other, which Regulus nearly stepped in. He had to hand Harry his- the chain on his arm wouldn’t stretch far enough- and then had to apologise when he dropped the spoon.

 

(Harry waved him off and used it anyway. Regulus winced.)

 

They ate by the door to save the trip back with the bowls. The bowls and spoons couldn’t be kept and secreted away  for future use, Harry informed him mournfully. Everything disappeared in the same manner that it appeared- Harry had no idea how, just that it wasn’t a house-elf- no matter how tightly you held onto it.

 

The food itself was lukewarm and tasted like a rather bland stew, with the consistency of porridge.

 

Regulus found it absolutely disgusting.

 

“ _Balls,”_ he hissed as he spilled some of the gruel-like stuff onto his robes for the third time.

 

Harry, who was sitting somewhere to his left, snorted.

 

“Piss off,” muttered Regulus without any real heat. Hesitantly, and trying not to think of how his parents would react if they saw, he wiped at his mouth and then cringed at how much of his ‘dinner’ had missed his mouth entirely.

 

“Finished?”, asked Harry, chains scraping over the ground.

 

Regulus nodded.

 

“Damn it. I nodded.”

 

“You know,” said Harry, as they made their way back to Harry’s preferred half of the cell, “for someone so posh-sounding you really do swear a lot, don’t you?”

 

Regulus sniffed. “Perhaps.”

 

“ _Perhaps,”_ repeated Harry mockingly to himself.

 

Regulus rolled his eyes.

 

“I rolled my eyes at you, just now.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

As the cell began to get narrower and narrower, Harry came to a sudden stop.

 

Regulus, not expecting it, bumped into him and got half a faceful of slightly sticky, dusty, hair for his trouble.

 

Thankfully, Harry chose to turn around then.

 

“Regulus,” said Harry, sounding deathly serious. “Regulus, I need you to do something for me.”

 

“What is it?”, asked Regulus cautiously.

 

Harry grabbed his left arm  tightly , and seemed to be talking slightly to the right of his face. “They’re going to come in soon- they usually do after food. When the door opens, it’ll really hurt your eyes and you’ll be tempted to try and run.  _Don’t._ Not yet. I haven’t worked out a good route yet.”

 

“ _Alright,”_ said Regulus, slowly. “You can let go of my arm whenever you want, incidentally.”

 

“ _No,”_ said Harry, with a sudden fierceness. “No, that’s not all of it. I need you to mind something for me, while I’m upstairs. If they want you, you can give them back. If they want both of us, just leave them here. But if it’s just me then I _need_ you to mind them.”

 

There was a quiet noise somewhere around where Harry’s face probably was, and then Harry’s thin fingers- which were surprisingly strong- slipped down to find his wrist and turn his hand palm up.

 

Something rather delicate was pressed into his hand, and then Harry carefully closed Regulus’ fist.

 

Regulus blinked at the darkness. “Are these glasses?”

 

“Yes,” said Harry. “I don’t want them to get broken up there, and I don’t really want to just leave them on the floor here- I’ll need them for when we get out. So-so-”

 

Harry’s voice faltered for a moment.

 

When he spoke again, it had taken on a slightly child-like quality, the sort of earnest intensity found in young children. “So you  _have_ to mind them for me- so they’ll be safe- and I’ll take them back when I come back and then we’ll get out of here and everything will be okay. You  _will_ mind them, right?”

 

Harry squeezed his arm.

 

“Yeah-yes, of course,” said Regulus carefully, remembering the dust all of a sudden.

 

_What’s the point in giving us mood-swings and...whatever this is?_

 

“Promise?”

 

And the falter was back and the grip had loosened.

 

Regulus delicately removed Harry’s hand from himself. “Yes, Harry. I promise.”

 

“Okay. Okay, good. Right. Let’s-let’s go then.”

 

Harry cleared his throat loudly and then turned around and clunked onwards into his little niche.

 

Regulus stared into the blackness of the cell for about half a minute before he slipped the glasses into his pocket and followed him.

 

Regulus didn’t say anything else about the glasses. Neither did Harry.

 

They both sat on the floor again and didn’t bother trying to fill up the silence.

 

(This may have been a mistake on Regulus’ part because it allowed his thoughts to wander back to the last few things he remembered before the cell. He didn’t really want to remember these things.)

 

It was just as Regulus’ eyes were getting heavy and he started wondering if darkness could drive a person mad that there came a grating noise from the opposite end of the cell.

 

Regulus turned to face it, a mix of fear and hope whirling around funnily inside him.

 

Harry whispered, “See you later,” and then bright white light burst into the room with all the gentleness of a brick to the face.

 

Regulus hissed and threw his hands up to shield his watering eyes. Bright shapes bounced around behind his closed eyelids.

 

There were footsteps.

 

“Accio,” said a stranger’s voice- a man’s voice.

 

Harry let out a yelp and suddenly staggered past, sounding as if he was nearly running.

 

Regulus tried to peel his eyes open again.

 

Pain bloomed into being behind his forehead and eyes.

 

Regulus closed his eyes again.

 

There was a loud metal clunk, as if chains had just been dropped.

 

“Enjoying the company?”, asked the man. He had an oddly smooth voice, almost musical.

 

“Oh, yeah, Loads,” said Harry. “Don’t suppose you could turn the lights down out here, could you? It’s a bit-”

 

The door slammed shut suddenly, cutting Harry off and blocking out the light (and freedom) again.

 

And then Regulus was left alone in the dark with nothing but his own thoughts for company.

 

(And if there were tears prickling his eyes and something tight in his throat now that there was no cellmate to distract him from the fact that he was scared shitless, then at least there was nobody there to see it.)

 

(Crying wasn’t beneficial or _proper.)_

 


	4. Going (Nowhere Fast): Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More bigotry. More Feelings. More internal conflict.
> 
> Yikes.
> 
> (Also, I'm aware that Sirius said he was 'about sixteen' when he ran away from home. A lot of people- including myself, oftentimes- place this as happening during the summer of 1976 or so. This time- for the pure drama of it, I suppose- summer before 5th year seemed a bit more appropriate. He's nearly sixteen anyway.)

**12th July 1975**

Things, Regulus decided, were not going especially well.

 

12 Grimmauld Place was quiet as a tomb in the wake of Sirius’ huge argument with Mother and Father- and the final-sounding slam of the front door when Sirius had stormed off with his school things.

 

This argument had been worse than the ones he was usually a witness to, though there was the disquieting thought that they actually toned it down for his sake.

 

All three of them had shouted- _Father_ had actually shouted- about a lot of things which Regulus had only half-understood; references to older arguments that he hadn’t known about, apparently.

 

Sirius had spouted some rubbish about the Blacks being bigots, and inbred (he might have had a point there) and had called the entire family _‘a load of tossers_ _who, for all that they’re too proud to mix with anyone, are perfectly happy to_ _kiss some snakey fascist’s arse!’_

 

It was hard to tell how much of that Sirius had meant and how much he had just said to watch the blood drain out of Father’s face, to see Mother’s cheeks flush in anger.

 

Because surely Sirius didn’t believe _all_ of this rubbish- he _did_ have a brain, didn’t he?- surely the worst of it was just him being a stubborn idiot who liked to get a rise out of people. Surely.

 

But he had said it, nonetheless, and Mother had called him an ungrateful traitor and a festering wound of a boy- _a cancer on the family tree!-_ and Father had said that Regulus was a far better son (which had made Regulus’ chest feel odd and tight and not in a good way), and that they should have drowned Sirius as soon as he was out of the womb (from Sirius and Mother’s reactions this had likely come up in another argument) and if _that_ was how Sirius felt after all that they had done for him then he could go out to live in the filth with the other abominations and blood-traitors and Mudbloods and never return, and then Sirius had gone quiet for a long minute before he’d shouted back that that was fine, and he _would_ go out and do just that, and that he hated them all and never wanted to see any of them ever again and that if they tried to fuck up Regulus like they’d done to him he’d burn down this mouldering mausoleum of a house with them trapped inside.

 

And Regulus had heard all of this as he sat out of sight on the stairs- heart in his throat and a sick feeling in his stomach- had heard the argument which had started in Father’s study rage on in the hall, heard the sharp sound as someone was slapped, heard Sirius’ ridiculous boots start thundering up the stairs.

 

Regulus had scrambled backwards and hidden inside the library as Sirius stormed off to his room, had heard the bedroom door slam shut for what would turn out to be the last time, had crept after his brother to stand outside the door and listen as Sirius threw things around his room, pulled drawers open, shouted swear-words and let out several quiet, broken, almost-sobs.

 

Regulus had stood, stock-still, in the centre of the landing when Sirius threw his door open again and stopped in his tracks, staring at him.

 

Sirius’ face had been deathly pale, save for the reddish-pink handprint on his cheek and the old greenish bruise on his temple.

 

(Regulus didn’t know where that bruise had come from- just that it had appeared some time last week- and hadn’t asked, even though he probably should have. It was unusual, but he still hadn’t asked. There was a reason why he wasn’t a Gryffindor, after all.)

 

Sirius had stared at him with wide, definitely-not-teary grey eyes, lips trembling slightly and expression as hard as he could make it.

 

Regulus had probably looked very similar as he stared back at him.

 

(They were very nearly the same height now. It felt wrong. Sirius had always been the big and brave one, Regulus the small and sneaky shadow. They weren’t meant to be the same. _Things weren’t meant to change._ )

 

“Are you coming with me?”, asked Sirius in the voice of someone who has already resigned himself to a negative answer.

 

“I can’t,” said Regulus, hands starting to hurt from being clenched. “You _know_ I can’t.”

 

“Yeah,” said Sirius, with half a smile. “It was worth a try, though.”

 

“Are you really going this time?”, asked Regulus, hating how small his voice sounded in that instant.

 

Sirius’ face sobered up again. “Yeah- dunno where, but I’m going and I’m _never_ coming back here. I wish-”, his voice shook slightly, “I wish that you didn’t just _believe_ them, every time. I used to, but-”

 

Sirius swallowed, then reached out and squeezed Regulus’ shoulder. “Be careful, Reg. I know it’s rich, coming from me. I know that things aren’t the same anymore and mightn’t ever be again, and I know that I can’t stop you from listening to them and doing something... _stupid._ I’m won’t try to change your mind- only you can do that. Just- just be careful, alright?”

 

Regulus frowned, then sort of smiled, then willed his face into passivity again, rather than give in and let it crumple up into a confused, miserable, mess like it wanted to.

 

“ _You_ be careful.”

 

Sirius huffed out what might have almost been a laugh. “I’ll see what I can do.”

 

And then Sirius was hugging him all of a sudden, tight enough half the air was squeezed out of him and Regulus couldn’t really remember the last time Sirius had hugged him at all- they couldn’t have been older than eight and ten- and then Regulus gave in for a moment and hugged him back.

 

“I love you, Reg. I love you, you stupid, soft, little _fool._ ”

 

Regulus huffed out a messy, shaky, laugh and half-hoped that he had gotten spit or snot or _something_ in Sirius’ hair.

 

“I love you too- even if you are a contrary, misguided, idiot.”

 

And they they let go, as suddenly as if they’d been scalded, and it was like it had never happened at all.

 

Sirius’ eyes were even more not-watery than before. Regulus’ own felt suspiciously warm.

 

Sirius pulled a thick envelope out of his pocket and whapped Regulus in the chest with it.

 

“Hide this, read it, then burn it and forget you ever had a brother, or whatever it is that they want you to do. Bye, Regulus. See you around.”

 

And then Sirius shouldered past him, a Muggle backpack-thing on his back and his school trunk trundling along after him, and stomped down the stairs to shout one last “FUCK YOU!” at Mother and Father, and Mother shouted back “I’LL BURN YOU FROM THIS TAPESTRY YOU UNGRATEFUL FILTH, YOU SEE IF I DON’T!”, and Father shouted at Sirius to get out of his house and that he was no son of his and then Sirius had slammed the front door behind him, and for a moment the house had fallen silent.

 

And Regulus was left standing outside of Sirius’ bedroom, still clutching the envelope like an idiot, and listening as the silence was replaced by the sound of things shattering downstairs and Father alternating between trying to calm Mother down and ordering Kreacher to repair things.

 

Things were not, it would seem, going especially well.

 

Regulus hurried to his bedroom, leaving Sirius’ door wide open because it seemed fundamentally _wrong_ for anyone but Sirius to close it, and trying to out-run the burning in his eyes and lump in his throat.

 

Regulus quietly closed his door behind him, and looked at the envelope in his hands for a moment.

 

His name was written on the front, in Sirius’ surprisingly careful penmanship, because of _course_ Sirius would give him something he thought dangerous enough that it had to be hidden and possibly destroyed and then put his _name_ on it.

 

Regulus didn’t open the envelope, not then.

 

He shut it inside his slightly battered copy of _The Importance of Pure Blood in Wizarding Politics,_ and sat on his bed and closed his eyes for a very long minute.

 

Sirius was gone and wasn’t ever coming back, and Regulus wanted to shout at him and shake him and tell him that he was a stupid, impulsive Gryffindor, and that he had betrayed them all, and that he didn’t even believe in those things, did he, he just wanted to be _different,_ and that if James Potter was so great then he could go live with _him_ , and that Mother and Father were right, the Dark Lord was right, Regulus was right, Sirius and the Mudbloods were wrong, and that this was all Sirius’ fault for going away to Hogwarts and leaving him on his own, and then being Sorted into Gryffindor because he just _had_ to be different, didn’t he, and hadn’t the Hat said that Regulus would’ve done well in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, and he’d gone to Slytherin anyway because he was a _Black_ and that was what Blacks did, and Sirius was wrong, the Dark Lord was right, the Mudbloods and Halfbloods _were_ lesser, of course they were, and all the deaths and explosions and dead children were coming from Sirius’ precious Gryffindor side, and Sirius was _wrongwrongwronggonegonegoneand he wasn’t ever coming back and he hadn’t excluded Regulus when he had said that he hated them all_ _but he had said he’d kill them if they fucked Regulus up_ _and he was wrong and gone and Sirius was- Sirius was-_

 

Regulus cried for what felt like a very long time, and then lay on his bed and stared at the newspaper clippings of the Dark Lord’s exploits and achievements that he had stuck up next to the family crest last summer and resolutely didn’t think about the dark look on Sirius’ face when he had seen it.

 

There wasn’t any dinner that night- Kreacher brought up a cup of tea and a bowl of soup and had told Regulus, at his request, that his parents had retired to bed for the night and that Mistress’ heart was broken because of that traitorous boy, and had also told Regulus, unrequested, that things could only get better, Master Regulus, before popping away to leave Regulus in silence.

 

He drank the tea and ate half the soup before he uncharacteristically tossed his clothes on the floor and curled up under the bedsheets.

 

Things were not going especially well for Regulus Arcturus Black.


	5. (Going) Nowhere Fast: Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter updates will probably be every Sunday around 7 or 8pm GMT. Maybe the same time on Wednesdays too.
> 
> Also, hurray- things are starting to look up for our prisoners.

**19th July 1975**

There was the grating sound of metal over stone and then a rectangle of searingly bright light burst into the cell.

 

Regulus- who hadn’t been expecting it- flinched and threw his arm up over his eyes.

 

“Watch it,” growled a man, though possibly not the same one as earlier.

 

“Piss off,” muttered Harry.

 

There was a metallic noise, Harry yelped, and then the door slammed shut again, leaving them in the dark.

 

“Regulus?”, asked Harry quietly, starting to walk forward. “Are you awake?”

 

Regulus removed his arm from his face and yawned. “Yes. How’d it go?”

 

“The usual. They ask me pointless questions, then they aren’t satisfied with any of the answers and say that I’m lying, I tell them that I’m not. They get annoyed, I get annoyed. Great fun, really.”

 

Harry was much closer now and breathing surprisingly heavily. “I don’t know why they bother anymore,” he muttered darkly.

 

Regulus pulled his legs in tighter to himself as Harry passed. His cellmate still managed to nearly trip over him and from the sounds of it, half-sat, half-fell, into his corner.

 

“ _Ow.”_

 

Regulus squinted in Harry’s general direction. “Are you alright?”

 

“Yeah, fine,” came the slightly too-fast answer.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“ _Yes.”_

 

“Alright, fine.”

 

After a brief moment of silence, Regulus suddenly remembered the glasses in his pocket. He pulled them out as he said, “Oh, here are your glasses back, by the way.”

 

Harry didn’t take them. “I think you should hold onto them for another while.”

 

“Are you sure?”, asked Regulus. “Earlier, you said-”

 

“I know what I said. I just-”

 

Harry broke off and sighed. When he spoke again, he sounded very tired all of a sudden. “Just mind them for me again, please- I won’t need them until we get out of this shit-hole anyway.”

 

“Alright,” muttered Regulus, slipping the frighteningly breakable-feeling spectacles back into his pocket as carefully as he could.

 

Harry yawned. “Nothing new happened, upstairs. I think it’s dark out, so there’s that. Oh, and they asked me how you were.”

 

Regulus blinked. “Really?”

 

A pause.

 

“I nodded, just then. Yeah, they did. I reckon they might want to talk to you or something soon enough.”

 

There was a bit of an edge in Harry’s voice when he said, “If they do, and one of the ones who come to get you is some tall fucker with a limp, punch him as hard as you can in the jaw. I think there’s something wrong with it- he just drops every time you nail him with a good upper-cut.”

 

Regulus frowned into the darkness, which was starting to become a very regular occurrence. “Won’t they just hurt me if I do that?”

 

“They’ll almost definitely hurt you anyway, so you might as well get a few good punches in.”

 

“Is that what happened to you?”, Regulus couldn’t help but ask.

 

“Maybe.”

 

Regulus didn’t say anything else- wasn’t sure what else he _could_ say. Harry didn’t elaborate or offer any more pearls of wisdom.

 

They were quiet for a very long time, then.

 

In fact, they had been quiet for so long that Regulus was fully convinced that Harry had fallen asleep and, as such, was rather surprised when (an admittedly very tired-sounding) Harry asked all of a sudden, “What’s your favourite subject, Regulus?”

 

Regulus almost jumped. Almost.

 

“ _Jesus._ I’ll tell you in the morning, Harry. You’ll only fall asleep anyway.”

 

“No I won’t. I don’t want to go to sleep yet,” came the slightly childish reply. “So, what is it?”

 

“Why do you care?”

 

“I’m bored and I don’t know you at all. So what is it?”

 

Regulus rolled his eyes. “I rolled my eyes at you, just so you know. I don’t know- Charms or Astronomy maybe. I get good marks in them. Though I rather like Potions and Defence.”

 

“ _Ugh, Potions,”_ said Harry, who sounded as if the only thing keeping him awake was the force of his will. “I hate Potions- I’ve always been rubbish at it anyway. Defence is my favourite, and probably my best, though that’s only because flying isn’t an exam subject. Would be nice to have the same teacher every year, though.”

 

Regulus hummed in agreement, and rubbed absently at his nose.

 

Then he sneezed.

 

“Are you okay?”, asked Harry, sounding slightly more alert.

 

Regulus sniffed. “I think some of the dust went up my nose.”

 

He smiled, suddenly, and half a giggle bubbled out before he could stop it. “It was a bit tickly.”

Regulus turned his head back towards Harry. “Harry- heh, _Harry-_ what’s your favourite spell? Mine’s been Accio since last summer when my brother practiced it and- heh- put a huge hole in Mother’s antique screen thing.”

 

“I always hated that screen,” he added, mostly talking to himself. “Scared the shit out of me when I was small.”

 

Talking to Harry again, Regulus said, with a laugh threatening to burst out of him all the while, “I think- heh- that I might prefer Lumos now, though.”

 

Regulus snorted to himself, still grinning wide.

 

A part of him rolled his eyes at the ridiculousness of his own dust-fuelled mood-swing.

 

Harry yawned.

 

“I dunno, I’ve never thought about it before,” he said, sounding only vaguely concerned by Regulus’ sudden fit of giggles. “Expecto Patronum, probably. I learned it back in Third Year- it’s been dead useful. Good memories, too.”

 

Regulus’ eyebrows threatened to become one with his hairline for a second. “Expecto Patronum? You learned to cast that when you were thirteen?”

 

“I nodded. Yeah- took me a while to manage it though. I was getting little cloud-things for _months_.”

 

_There’s no way he can actually do it. There’s no way-_

 

An idea occurred to Regulus then- a very sudden, very wonderful idea. It was the sort of amazing thought which had probably led to the actual creation of the Patronus Charm.

 

He leaned forward and accidentally bumped knees with Harry in his rush.

 

“Harry,” said Regulus urgently, no longer even remotely giddy. “Harry you _can_ cast a corporeal Patronus, right?”

 

“ _Yeah,”_ said Harry, sounding slightly offended.

 

“Have you ever managed to send a message with it?”, Regulus pressed, hope beginning to stir despite his best efforts to tamp it down.

 

“What? You can do that?”

 

“Well, yes. Obviously. Isn’t that why you learned it?”

 

“No, I learned it because of the Dementors.”

 

“Alright, fair enough. Look, the point is that you _can_ do that, and because a Patronus is just made of magic and light and all that, they can travel fairly quickly and can’t be stopped by anything as ordinary as _walls.”_

 

“Alright,” said Harry, “but what’s that got to do with-”

 

The penny seemed to drop then.

 

“Oh! We could get help!”

 

Regulus nodded. “I know. And even if _they_ see it, they can’t stop it either, and it’ll only talk to whoever it’s sent to, I’ve read.”

 

Harry muttered something that sounded like _‘Hermione’,_ before he said more loudly, “Will we send it to the Aurors then?”

 

Regulus frowned. “I don’t think we _can-_ the Ministry’s got special wards up, supposedly. I have no idea if a Patronus would be repelled by them or not, and I think you have to have someone specific in mind when you send it, and I don’t know any Aurors. Do you?”

 

“No,” said Harry, sounding crestfallen. “They’d probably think it was just some stupid joke anyway.”

 

_Stupid joke- Sirius- the Potters._

 

“You know who we _could_ send it to?”, asked Regulus slowly, hope wrestling with annoyance. “My brother- he ran off a few days ago, and he’s almost definitely with one of his friends. His father- in a bit of an unlikely coincidence- knows a load of Aurors and the like, I don’t know why. I don’t think he ever was one. But _they_ could help us.”

 

“Thank God and Merlin and whoever else for unlikely coincidences,” said Harry.

 

There was a pause before Harry said, worriedly, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get at my wand for long enough to send that message.”

 

“Then you’ll just have to cast it wandlessly, won’t you? It’s easy enough,” said Regulus with a confidence that he really didn’t feel.

 

Harry was quiet for several moments.

 

“Is it?”, he asked eventually, not sounding very convinced.

 

“Of course it is,” lied Regulus. “I’ve seen my father do it a hundred times- I don’t think you even need a hand-movement or anything. You just say the words and it happens. Easy.”

 

“It sounds pretty hard, Regulus.”

 

“So does casting a Patronus at all, and yet here we are.”

 

“I-alright,” said Harry, sounding a strange mixture between defeated and hopeful. “So I just think of a happy memory, say the spell, and then tell it to go find your brother?”

 

“Er, yeah, that’s the gist of it. Before you tell it to go, though, we’ll have to tell him what happened. I’ll do that bit- he might think it’s just a joke, otherwise.”

 

“Oh, yeah. Good idea.”

 

“Whenever you’re ready, then,” said Regulus lightly, closing his eyes to half-slits in preparation for the glowing animal manifestation of Harry’s soul, or whatever a Patronus actually was. (It had been quite a while since he had read that book on the Patronus Charm, admittedly.)

 

“Right. Okay, then. Here we go.”

 

A moment of silence, then Harry said confidently, “Expecto Patronum!”

 

Nothing happened.

 

The cell remained dark and no miraculous life-line to the outside world appeared.

 

“I didn’t feel anything,” said Harry, sounding as disappointed as Regulus felt.

 

“Everything’s hard the first time you try it,” said Regulus, trying to seem encouraging. “And you’re tired and hungry- I’m sure you’ll get it after some sleep.”

 

“Hmm,” said Harry, not sounding very convinced. “You think so?”

 

“Yes,” said Regulus resolutely because he _had_ to sound as if he had every faith in Harry as much as Harry _had_ to actually manage to pull this off.

 

“Alright, then. Alright. Er, good night, Regulus.”

 

“Good night.”

 

Regulus tried to relax against the wall.

 

He was surprisingly successful, and all of a sudden his eyelids seemed to have been plated with iron.

 

_All I ever seem to do is sleep- I bet they’ve put something in the food, or that bloody dust._

 

And before he knew it, Regulus Black was fast asleep in the narrowest part of a cold, dark, cell, dreaming of sunshine and Snitches.

 


	6. Goodbye Kansas: Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Longish chapter here, in which we marvel once again at just how much luck seems to go out of its way in order to make Harry Potter's life more dramatic.
> 
> This chapter relies heavily on Chapter 7 'The Ministry of Magic' and Chapter 34 'The Department of Mysteries' of Order of The Phoenix, with quotes or near-quotes in places. Short disclaimer here: in case it wasn't already abundantly obvious, I do not own Harry Potter (either the character or the series) or related franchises. 
> 
> I continue to feel cheated that we didn't get to see the proper Atrium in the film.
> 
> Also, huge thank you to everyone who's following this story or reading it at a later date, and especially to the wonderful people who have left Kudos or bookmarked this story. That means a lot to me, so thank you.

**8th & 9th July 1995**

Against all odds, Harry Potter came to find himself standing before a battered red telephone box on Fetter Lane before midnight, and without having been discovered by any Muggles- either on the bus trip up (wherein both he and Hedwig and slept for a time, though this did nothing for Harry other than ease some of the ache in his tired eyes), or the many, many, times Harry had had to stop and find directions to the street.

(These little detours had led to a number of close calls involving a fidgety and wide-awake Hedwig and a slipping Cloak. Harry wouldn’t be terribly surprised if there was an article in the paper tomorrow about a floating head roaming the streets of London.)

 

Fetter Lane- much like the Leaky Cauldron- did not look like the sort of place to hide an entrance to part of the Wizarding world, let alone to the Ministry of Magic itself. The buildings were all slightly run-down looking, shop-fronts were covered in weathered, grafittied, grilles, and there were words- many of them illegible- spray-painted everywhere, even on some of the apparently unchanging piles of rubbish.

 

But nonetheless, just as Bathilda Bagshot’s book had said, there was a red phone-box near the end of the street, and apart from a few missing panes of glass, it seemed to be in surprisingly good condition compared to the rest of Fetter Lane.

 

Hesitantly, Harry opened the door and stepped inside, eyeing the crooked telephone and scuffed dial worriedly. Here was where his plan could be cut down immediately, and this entire trip (as well as the shouting he was going to get from Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia when they found him standing sheepishly on their doorstep in the morning) rendered entirely pointless.

 

Harry peered at the numbers- painted orange by the light of a miraculously unbroken street-light nearby- and briefly considered thinking about it logically and making an educated guess, but then decided that that was Hermione’s domain and instead decided to fall back on the approach that he and Ron tended to favour- try anything at all and hope that it works out.

 

He took the receiver off the hook- it seemed the right thing to do- and hesitantly dialled 1,2,3,4.

 

Nothing happened.

 

2,4,6,8 and 1,3,5,7 proved similarly unsuccessful.

 

 _Fuck it,_ thought Harry, before he started to dial random strings of numbers, all of varying lengths and with no real rhyme or reason to them.

 

And after what felt like half an eternity of tiredly dialling in ineffectual passwords, Harry finally got it right.

 

“Welcome to the Ministry of Magic,” said a woman’s voice. There was no real inflection or feeling to her words, though disconcertingly they seemed to be coming from right beside him, rather than from the receiver. If the phone-box hadn’t been so small, Harry would have wondered if he wasn’t the only one hidden under an Invisibility Cloak.

 

“Please state your name and business,” instructed the woman.

 

“Er,” said Harry, before hesitantly saying into the mouthpiece of the receiver, “Harry P- just Harry, and I’m here to fix something.”

 

“Thank you,” said the disembodied voice. “Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to your robes.”

 

There was a quiet click, and then a small silver badge dropped out of the coin chute.

 

Harry picked it up and examined it.

 

It was quite small but large enough that he could easily make out the words _Harry, Repairs_ printed on the front.

 

He slipped it into his pocket, Hedwig on his shoulder and quietly protesting at the sudden movement.

 

“Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium.”

 

“Alright,” said Harry, replacing the receiver and feeling slightly foolish as he did so for having held it for so long.

 

And then the floor started to judder beneath him, as if he was standing on a bus, rather than inside a telephone-box.

 

Harry smoothed down Hedwig’s feathers in an attempt to reassure both of them as (to his internal dismay) the floor of the phone-box started to sink down like a lift and suddenly the pavement outside was above his head.

 

Then everything went dark.

 

Harry re-arranged the Cloak in an attempt to better hide himself, and pulled his wand out of his pocket, still trying to calm Hedwig with his left hand. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t seem to be enjoying their trip underground whatsoever and was ruffling her feathers agitatedly on his shoulder.

 

The one bright side thus far to all of this was that Harry had been hit with a sudden rush of adrenaline, and whilst this did nothing to dissuade him from his rather terrible plan, it did take some of the weight of exhaustion from his shoulders and sharpen his rapidly failing mental facilities a surprising amount.

 

(Fatigue, strangely enough, was not very conducive to quick reactions, good ideas, or concentration. The spike of adrenaline improved two of these areas for Harry, neither of which was the ability to come up with good ideas.)

 

Golden light appeared then, starting at his feet and working its way up until Harry was blinking rapidly in an attempt to adjust to it.

 

Then the doors to the phone-box/secret lift opened with a surprising amount of vigour then, and Harry was suddenly faced with one of the most beautiful rooms he had ever seen in his life.

 

“The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant night,” said the disembodied voice, though Harry didn’t pay it much heed.

 

The Atrium of the Ministry of Magic was huge- the floor was a polished dark wood, the ceiling peacock blue and covered in constantly changing golden runes and shapes. There were gilded fire-places set along the walls, with dark wooden panelling in between. Despite the fact that there were no noticeable windows and it was dark out anyway, the room was perfectly lit and Harry could see all the way to the golden gates at the end of the empty hall.

 

About half-way down the room was a massive golden statue set inside a fountain- a witch, a wizard, a centaur, a goblin, and a house-elf. Water burst in a merry spray from the wizard and witch’s wands, the tips of both the house-elf’s ears, the end of the centaur’s bow, and the top of the goblin’s hat.

Harry’s sense of awe at the installation faded rather quickly and was replaced with a prickly sense of unease as he looked at it a bit more closely and took in how noble and attractive and _perfect_ the witch and wizard were, and the uncharacteristic looks of adoration the other three beings were regarding them with. Those expressions seemed horribly out of place on the goblin and centaur, though maybe less so on the house-elf.

 

Glancing away from the fountain, Harry made his way towards the gates, which seemed a likely place to start his search for the Department of Mysteries.

 

His footsteps, alongside Hedwig’s quiet fidgeting- and she really _was_ remarkably quiet and well-behaved for an owl, he realised all of a sudden- seemed horribly loud.

 

As he passed the fountain, he saw a small sign at the bottom which read, _ALL PROCEEDS FROM THE FOUNTAIN OF MAGICAL BRETHREN WILL BE GIVEN TO ST. MUNGO’S HOSPITAL FOR MAGICAL MALADIES AND INJURIES._

 

And when Harry found himself on the other side of the Fountain of Magical Brethren, he also found himself faced with what just might have been a problem; there was a desk to the left of the golden gates, a sign labelled _Security_ hanging overhead. And seated at that desk, looking likely to notice Harry walking by given how twitchy he seemed, was a very tired-looking wizard in robes the same shade of blue as the Atrium’s ceiling.

 

Through the gates Harry could see a smaller hall and a few lifts behind golden grilles.

 

The wizard yawned, stubbornly keeping his eyes open and his hand on his wand the entire time. Harry’s heart twinged with sympathy for him.

 

Feelings of empathy and understanding aside, however, there was no way that the wizard- who had probably heard the gates open at the other end of the hall as well as Harry’s echoing footsteps- wouldn’t notice Harry walking past him and getting into a lift. And Harry had the strangest idea that he wouldn’t look all that kindly on Harry’s attempt to essentially break into the Department of Mysteries and steal from the government, even if it _was_ for a noble cause.

 

Harry was in desperate need of a distraction- preferably one which wouldn’t get him cursed by the _very_ jumpy-looking wizard.

 

And at that very moment, Hedwig took it upon herself to be that distraction.

 

With a quiet screech, she threw herself off of his shoulder and onto the floor, and then wriggled out from under the folds of the Cloak- all whilst managing not to expose Harry’s feet to the wizard, who was staring at the owl which had apparently materialised out of thin air with undisguised confusion and horror.

 

Hedwig hopped up onto the desk then, hooting softly, and the wizard very hesitantly reached out to her.

 

Harry stayed frozen to the spot for a moment, unwilling to leave his owl behind, when she suddenly bit at the wizard’s hand with her beak, eliciting a glare and a curse from the wizard.

 

Hedwig trilled almost triumphantly before she took off to soar around the room, the wizard springing to his feet and hurrying after her.

 

Harry’s hand tightened convulsively around his wand.

 

He chanced one last glance at Hedwig- currently swooping around the Fountain of Magical Brethren- and promised himself that he’d come back for her as soon as he could.

 

And then Harry sprinted towards the elevators, sacrificing stealth in favour of getting away as soon as he could and hoping desperately that the wizard was far too busy with Hedwig- who let out another screech- to notice.

 

Harry skidded to a stop in front of the centre-most lift and the golden grille sprang back immediately, apparently sensing his presence despite the Cloak.

 

The lift was rather roomy, clearly meant to carry several Ministry workers at a time. There was a button-covered panel set into the right wall.

 

It was here that Harry ran into another road-block- the buttons were numbered, not labelled, and he had no idea which of the nine corresponded to the Department of Mysteries.

 

Given that the button labelled 8 was currently glowing softly, Harry decided to presume that it was for the Atrium.

 

Out of desperation, Harry pressed the first button.

 

The grilles closed again and the lift began to rise with an unholy clattering sound.

 

At first it went at a fairly reasonable speed, but then the lift started to zip up at a pace more suited to a broomstick. Clearly, either Ministry workers were desperate for a bit of excitement (which was all you ever needed to know about office work, really), or the lift was intended to be weighed down by a large group of people.

 

Whatever the reason, Harry thought it was _brilliant._

 

Over the rushing of air, Harry could make out the same woman’s voice from the phone-box, this time informing him that button one was for “Level One, Minister for Magic and Support Staff.”

 

None of that- or the bland, door-lined corridor that was Level One) seemed very Department of Mysteries-ish to Harry, so he pressed the next button before the grilles had a chance to open.

 

The second button was for “Level Two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters, and Wizengamot Administration Services.” It looked very much the same as Level One, if slightly less well-maintained.

 

Next was,“Level Three, Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, including the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, Obliviator Headquarters, and Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee.”

 

Then, “Level Four, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, incorporating Beast, Being, and Spirit Divisions, Goblin Liaison Office, and Pest Advisory Bureau.”

 

And then, “Level Five, Department of International Magical Co-operation, incorporating the International Trading Standards Body, the International Magical Office of Law and the International Confederation of Wizards, British Seats.”

 

Harry was starting to feel a nagging sense of doubt as he rushed towards “Level Six, Department of Magical Transportation, incorporating the Floo Network Authority, Broom Regulatory Control, Portkey Office and Apparation Test Centre.”

 

“Level Seven, Department of Magical Games and Sports, incorporating the British and Irish Quidditch League Headquarters, Official Gobstones Club and Ludicrous Patents Office,” sounded like the most interesting one by far, but was as unhelpful as all the others had been.

 

There was only one button left, and if it led to the Department of Mysteries, Harry was going to be furious with himself.

 

“Level Nine, Department of Mysteries,” said the voice, not elaborating any further, and Harry was indeed furious with himself.

 

Level Nine looked very little like the levels which had come before it- it was a long and dim torch-lit corridor, with mostly bare walls and no carpet, and its only features were the stairwell on the left which led down into a rather uninviting darkness, and a plain black door at the end of the corridor.

 

Glancing at the stairwell dubiously, Harry set off for the black door.

 

It opened before he could lay a hand on it.

 

The solid darkness on the other side didn’t look very welcoming.

 

There was a sudden clatter and a quiet whooshing noise from behind him, and Harry whirled around immediately, heart battering away at his ribcage and a painfully tight grip on his wand.

 

A white blur barrelled up from the dark stairway and sped towards him like a feathery bullet.

 

Harry pulled the Cloak from his head and Hedwig let out a smug-sounding trill as she landed on his hair, before shimmying down to his left shoulder.

 

“How- oh, never mind. Let’s go,” said Harry to his owl who, being an owl, did not answer him.

 

Harry hid himself and Hedwig beneath the Invisibility Cloak again, and then stepped into the yawning blackness behind the still-open door.

 

After a moment, the darkness gave way to an eerie blue light- coming from the blue flames dancing in the torches on the walls.

 

Harry found himself standing in a large, circular, room, where everything was made of shining black marble. He would be lying if he said that he felt particularly comfortable at that particular moment in time. There were more plain black doors set at intervals along the wall of the room- strangely, they didn’t have any handles, though Harry supposed that this was because they opened automatically like the first door.

 

Remembering that said door was still open behind him, Harry quickly shut it, remembering the wizard from the Atrium, and wondering if he had followed Hedwig.

 

The only sources of light now were the cold blue torches.

 

Harry stepped further into the room, intending to open the door immediately opposite him in the hopes that it would lead to a room full of Time-Turners, but stopped dead when a great rumble suddenly filled the air.

 

The blue flames blurred.

 

The wall was rotating.

 

By the time it stopped, Harry was feeling more than slightly dizzy and had blue spots dancing around in the corners of his vision.

 

Hedwig let out a quiet, indignant, hoot and tightened her grip on his shoulder.

 

It was then that Harry realised that he no longer knew for sure which door he had intended to open, or which door he had come in through. A security measure- something which the Ministry seemed to be sorely lacking- of some sort?

 

For lack of a better idea, Harry decided to open the door which was now opposite him.

 

Surprisingly, it didn’t open automatically like the handled entrance door had, but instead needed a gentle push.

 

Harry’s first impression of the room on the other side was that it was very _bright._ Light seemed to be reflecting off of a hundred different things, creating a dazzling, diamond-like, effect.

 

As his vision cleared, he realised that there were an untold number of clocks inside the room- dozens hanging on the walls, small alarm clocks cluttered onto desks, and a solid grandfather clock in nearly every corner and in between each set of shelves.

 

The incredible, brilliant, light was only coming from one thing- an enormous bell-jar set on top of one of the desks, easily nearly as tall as he was and filled with what Harry could only describe as a glittering wind.

 

Harry’s spirits soared- if there was any room in the Department of Mysteries likely to house Time-Turners, surely it was this one.

 

Harry entered the room, closing the door softly behind him.

 

He pulled the Cloak off and stuffed it into one of his jacket pockets, peering around himself with interest.

 

Hedwig fluttered off of his shoulder to examine her new surroundings.

 

Now where on earth were the Time-Turners?

 

Harry eyed the nearest bookshelf, which was filled with ancient tomes thick enough to give someone a concussion with and the odd, rather fiddly-looking, knick-knack.

 

This seemed a likely place to start.

 

Harry slowly made his way through the shelves, which lined nearly every wall and split off in places to wander down between the desks.

 

It was just as his now rather sore eyes found something which looked like a cross between a Time-Turner and a pocket watch, that Harry’s gaze was caught by something else- something which didn’t sparkle like the bell-jar did, but gave off a soothing yellow light which, now that he could see it, seemed just as entrancing as the jar ever had.

 

Harry turned to look at the glowing thing- was it a globe?

 

Things started to happen very quickly, then.

 

Just as Harry turned to examine whatever it was that had caught his eye, it suddenly ceased being the 8th of July, and became the 9th instead- all of the clocks struck twelve. _All_ of them.

 

Hedwig- who had been curiously pecking at a nearby cuckoo clock- was (quite understandably) scared half to death by the sudden appearance of the cuckoo bird and the cacophony of chimes, whirs, and bongs. She let out a screech, took flight again, and landed solidly on her new favourite (and so far, very safe) perch- Harry’s shoulder.

 

Harry- who was mid-turn, and as such, already slightly off-balance- was caught off guard by the unexpected and distressed feathery weight on his shoulder, heralded by an almost deafening amount of noise.

 

Unsurprisingly, Harry stumbled at that moment, and seeing as he hadn’t had very firm footing at the time, he (also unsurprisingly) fell.

 

Right onto the still unidentified glowing thing.

 

Luck was no longer on Harry Potter’s side, it would seem.

 

Harry all of a sudden found himself practically hugging the glowing thing- which was bigger than expected- as a terrified Hedwig expressed her fear right into his ear and the bells started to fade.

 

He only had time to blink and distractedly hope that Hedwig wasn’t so upset that she was going to shit on him before the world dissolved in a whirl of colour and warmth.

 

 _Bugger,_ thought Harry, as he spun through the world’s cosiest and windiest kaleidoscope.

 

Things stopped making a whole pile of sense immediately after that.

 

Harry caught fragments of scenes, as if he was there himself, or watching it in a film-

 

_-the clock room, filled with people in dark robes and all of them regarding him with surprise -_

 

_-a sunny garden, covered in snow and a set of footprints -_

 

_-the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts on a clouded evening, where a young couple were spinning around to face him, hand-in-hand -_

 

\- and then it all started to swirl past him far too quickly for Harry to pick up anything more than blobs of colour, a constant blur of _green, blue, black, white, red, gold, orange, purple -_

 

 _-_ and then _that_ started to go to fast for Harry’s brain to keep up and now all he could see was a solid block of _white, white, white,_ and there was a warm, sweet-smelling, breeze on Harry’s face and then the wind whistling in his ears died down for a moment and he caught fragments of a different kind this time-

 

\- a voice, a boy’s voice, oddly familiar- was it his own voice? He wasn’t sure. Sounded like it though- said fondly, _“Regulus”_ \- and wasn’t that a star? Professor Sinestra had said that it was part of Leo, back in First Year. He’d been born under Leo- Trelawney had made them write about their star signs at one point -

 

\- and then _Neville Longbottom_ , of all people, was saying to him more confidently than he’d ever said anything in his life, probably, _“Don’t worry, Harry- I’ll take care of it. You just focus on your own side of things,”_ and Harry was incredibly confused as to what Neville was offering to take care of and what _his_ side of things was supposed to be -

 

-and then Ron was calling out, _“HARRY!”_ , and there was definitely emotion there, though Harry couldn’t tell what it was for the life of him. Was Ron excited? Angry? Scared? -

 

-and then Hermione was whispering in his ear, sounding that uniquely Hermione mix of worried and slightly exasperated, “Horcruxes, _Harry! They’re Dark Magic- rip your soul- Professor Dumbledore said-_ honestly, don’t you read? _\- be careful, Harry!”_ -

 

-and then someone said loudly, _“Obliviate!”_ -

 

-and then Harry was lying on his back, blinking up at an unfamiliar stone ceiling and feeling incredibly winded.

 

Harry took a deep breath and then let it out slowly.

 

He sat up.

 

Hedwig was beside him, hopping about agitatedly by his right hand and letting out strange screechy-chirps. Harry didn’t think he’d ever heard _any_ owl make that sound before, let alone Hedwig.

 

It was a very upset-sounding sort of noise, he decided, and he started to stroke absently at her feathers in an attempt to soothe her and give himself time to work out what the _fuck_ had just happened.

 

Colours, wind, shouting- _that_ had all happened. And before that had been what, exactly?

 

Harry blinked again, eyes surprisingly heavy.

 

Hedwig started to quiet down in his lap.

 

It felt a bit like someone had thrown a blanket over Harry’s brain, obscuring a lot of what had happened most recently. It was a thick, wooly, blanket. Grey, probably. It was a bit moth-eaten, though; there were a few holes in it, and through those holes were the odd flashes of memory. Not very coherent memories though, just snatches of smells and sounds and that. Not at all helpful.

 

There was nothing for it, Harry decided, but to get up and explore his surroundings.

 

He managed to persuade Hedwig to get off of him long enough for Harry to climb to his feet. He tried to ignore the rather unsettling way the solid, stone, floor seemed to wiggle about under him.

 

Hedwig made a barking noise and flew up to his left shoulder, which was starting to feel rather tender. Harry wondered absently if she had been perched there a lot in the No-Man’s Land between when he had last been in Privet Drive- hadn’t he just started his Transfiguration homework?- and when he had woken up on the floor.

 

The unfamiliarity of the room did absolutely nothing to settle the unease which was starting to weigh down onto his shoulders.

 

Harry was standing by a set of shelves- one of many in the strange room. There were desks and stools strewn about all over the place, as well as a slightly worrying amount of clocks of all sorts, seemingly nailed down onto every flat surface, and then some. Nearest were a nice-looking carriage clock was on the shelf nearest him next to a row of fragile-looking trinkets, a huge train station clock set in the floor of all places, and what looked like an extremely over-sized watch face on that desk over there. The watch was one of those fancy ones which have the time _and_ the date- it kindly informed Harry that it was currently half-nine on the 5  th  of July.

 

Harry groaned- the Dursleys were going to _kill_ him. No doubt he was supposed to be slaving over Aunt Petunia’s flowers right now, or hiding his homework in his bedroom, or doing his utmost to avoid Dudley and Uncle Vernon, not hanging around in strange clock-filled rooms.

 

Aside from the constant quiet ticking, the room seemed like a nice enough office-workshop-place. Whatever it was, it was almost definitely magical due to the stone floor and brightly burning brass braziers, which only served to further confuse Harry. He had only just left the Wizarding World-what was he doing back so soon?

 

There was a door over there, a plain, black affair. Harry decided that it was probably as good a place as any to start investigating.

 

He pulled it open by the big shiny handle; it swung smoothly on near-silent hinges.

 

There was a very intimidating room on the other side of the door- it was circular and made entirely of polished black marble, and had black, handle-less doors set along the wall. When Harry let the door to the clock room fall shut behind him, the only light came from the slightly unnerving pale blue torches.

 

Harry stepped into the room, frowned, and then picked a door at random- the one on his immediate right opened after a light push.

 

There was a long corridor before him now- at the other end was a golden grille, which covered a lift.

 

Harry didn’t really pay that much attention, though- he focused instead on the trio of figures standing about half-way down the corridor, speaking quietly.

 

A low voice said, “-number two might be pretending; there’s nothing wrong with her vocal chords- I think a bit of pain will either make her confess or prove that the fault lies elsewhere. Perhaps if we get out that whip-”, before breaking off.

 

The group turned as one to face Harry.

 

A tall ginger man, a shorter, broader, man- what was that on his cheek?- and a strikingly beautiful dark-skinned woman all stared at Harry in silence for a moment.

 

Harry stared back.

 

And then they were pulling out their wands and Harry had produced his from his back pocket and was levelling it at the ginger, saying “Stupefy!”, but his intended target side-stepped it and the red light struck the shorter man who crumpled to the floor, and Harry aimed at the ginger again but then the woman said “Petrificus Totalus!”, and Harry’s wand was useless now because he was frozen in place.

 

Hedwig burst into the air in a great, screechy, flurry of feathers, and Harry watched with his heart in his mouth as she clawed at the woman- the _witch,_ Harry, she’s a witch and they’re wizards, not Muggles- and was shooed away with a bright grey spell. Hedwig narrowly evaded it, let out a final cry, and then took off down a darkened stairwell somewhere to Harry’s right, by the lift.

 

And then it was just Harry- unable to move and feeling more than slightly embarrassed- and the very pretty witch and the red-haired wizard.

 

The both stepped forward, leaving their colleague crumpled on the floor with hardly a second glance, the witch in the lead.

 

They came to a stop very close to Harry- close enough that he could see that the witch’s eyes were a very dark blue and that the wizard had a pinkish scar on his neck.

 

The witch regarded Harry with a very Slytherin sort of calculation on her face, before she brandished her wand at him and cast a spell that Harry hadn’t a hope of recognising.

 

(Privately he thought it was very unfair that she was so attractive, seeing as she was both the sort of person to lurk in strange corridors, talking about torture, and definitely somewhere on the far side of thirty-five.)

 

A pale blue light became his entire world for a moment, and then it faded and Harry was left with shadows dancing in his vision- shadows which he was completely unable to blink away.

 

“What do you think?”, the witch asked the wizard, in a hushed tone.

 

The wizard smiled the sort of smile which would have been very reassuring- the sort of a smile that a beloved uncle might bestow upon his favourite niece or nephew (the sort of smile that Uncle Vernon would rather chew off his own foot than give to Harry)- had he not been pointing a wand straight at Harry’s chest.

 

“Absolutely wonderful,” he told the witch, sounding positively gleeful.

 

The witch smiled brightly and gently stroked his cheek.

 

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she breathed.

 

The wizard pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Nor have I, though I’m sure you’ll work it out- if anyone can, it’s you.”

 

The witch smiled again. “Hold him still,” she said, still in those soft, gentle, tones. “Let’s see how co-operative he’s feeling.”

 

The wizard pecked her cheek. “As you wish, my love.”

 

He walked around behind Harry, and wrapped his arms around Harry’s slightly out-stretched ones.

 

The witch flicked her wand. “Finite Incantatem!”

 

And suddenly Harry could move more than his eyes again, but before he could try anything the wizard was holding his arms in a vice-like grip and had forced Harry to his knees.

 

The witch- who had been reasonably tall before- now loomed over him.

 

Harry was suddenly reminded rather strongly of his early childhood, and how Piers Polkiss had held him (and others, because Dudley and Piers got around) down in a similar manner to give Dudley some clear shots at his stomach, unimpeded by Harry’s flailing and admittedly rather weak punches as Harry had been a very slight seven year old at the time.

 

“What’s your name?”, asked the witch, suddenly sounding rather clinical and as if she had managed to go the whole year without seeing his picture splashed onto one of the _Prophet_ ’s front pages.

 

Harry blinked at her. She seemed completely serious.

 

_Is she thick or does she really not know who I am?_

 

Harry decided, very quickly, that if they hadn’t realised that he was the Boy-who-Lived yet then he was probably better off keeping that to himself- they would probably take him straight to Voldemort; they seemed rather Death Eater-like.

 

(This very reasonable and logical idea also pleased the large part of Harry which would rather drink someone else’s piss than make things easier for his apparent captors.)

 

The witch was still looking at him, patiently awaiting an answer.

 

Harry wasn’t one to disappoint.

 

He looked up, stared into the witch’s lovely eyes and said as clearly as he could, “Fuck off.”

 

The witch’s face clouded.

 

“Obliviate!”

 

And then the world went dark.

 

When Harry woke up- neck stiff and bones aching- he was in another stone room he didn’t recognise. The moth-eaten grey blanket had settled over more memories, leaving a blank between the round black room and his second awakening.

 

Despite a glaring lack of windows or light sources, Harry’s new surroundings were rather brightly lit, and Harry could easily see that the room was very oddly-shaped; he was currently sitting with his back to the wall at the narrowest part, which seemed only barely wide enough for him to fit in it sideways. The door was down at the other end of the room, where it was much wider.

 

Everything was made of smooth grey stone, bar the metal door, the shackle around Harry’s left ankle, and the long chain which connected said shackle to the wall.

 

Harry walked as far as he could with his tether, and discovered that it stopped about a very tantalising foot or so from the door.

 

And then, he heard it.

 

Somewhere nearby, muffled somewhat by the door, a girl was screaming with everything she had.

 

Harry’s blood ran cold.

 

And not for the first time, Harry Potter wondered what the _fuck_ had just happened.

 


	7. (Going) Nowhere Fast: Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone who's reading this! Massive thank you to everyone who's left a comment, kudo, or bookmark, and a huge thank you to everyone who's just reading along. You are all wonderful.
> 
> We return to the cell. Apologies in advance for nightmares, Having Conversations, and The Dust.
> 
> See you Wednesday!

**19th July 1975**

Regulus was abruptly jolted back into the land of the awake when the legs he had once again unknowingly slept against started jerking about.

 

Regulus blinked slowly, trying to dispel the last traces of a rather confusing dream (something to do with Kreacher and his Potions essay?) and rubbed absently at his cheek, which was sore from when a rather knobbly kneecap had just kneed it.

 

There was a quiet sound from somewhere beside him- as if someone had just stepped on a puppy’s tail.

 

Regulus frowned, starting to feel a bit more awake.

 

The sound happened again.

 

“Harry?”, whispered Regulus. “Are you awake?”

 

Harry didn’t answer.

 

A new noise made itself known then- harsh, ragged, gasps. They were coming from the apparently still-asleep Harry.

 

“Harry?”

 

Harry made the quiet noise again.

 

One of his knees made contact with Regulus’ knee with a surprising amount of force.

 

“ _Ow,”_ muttered Regulus.

 

“Harry, wake up.”

 

But Harry didn’t wake up, didn’t stop twitching about, didn’t stop panting for breath. What he _did_ do was start talking.

 

“Mum?”, asked Harry, sounding very small and scared. “Mum! Dad! Please- you’ve got to help me- he’s going to kill Cedric again- _please-_ I’m sorry- don’t go- he’ll kill him-”

 

Harry broke off to let out another one of those pained, pitiful, sounds.

 

 _Bugger it all,_ thought Regulus, feeling rather powerless in that moment and not liking it at all.

 

“Harry!”, said Regulus rather loudly, leaning forward and somewhat clumsily finding Harry’s shoulder.

 

(He had no idea what you were supposed to do when someone was having a nightmare- wasn’t it one of those things you weren’t supposed to wake people up from?)

 

“Harry!”

 

Harry’s breathing sped up even more.

 

“Dad! Mum- _please-_ I’m sorry-”

 

Regulus shook his shoulder roughly. “Wake up!”

 

Harry still didn’t wake up. He thrashed around again, and Regulus felt the rush of air as one of his hands came worryingly close to hitting him in the face.

 

“HARRY! WAKE THE FUCK UP!”

 

And all of a sudden, Harry was leaning forward and wasn’t calling out for his parents or almost-whimpering anymore.

 

There was a long moment in which Regulus felt exceedingly uncomfortable as Harry sat still and gasped in his ear.

 

Then, “Reg’lus?”

 

Harry sounded exhausted.

 

“Yes?”

 

“’s goin’ on? n’-” Harry let out a huge, jaw-cracker of a yawn. “What time’s it?”

 

“How the fuck should I know? It’s always dark in here.”

 

Harry let out a slightly amused-sounding huff of breath, breathing starting to return to a normal pace.

 

“I, er, had to wake you up,” said Regulus, very thankful for the fact that he and Harry couldn’t see each other. “You were having a nightmare- moving around and talking and such. Does that happen a lot?”

 

Harry shrugged- Regulus felt the motion under his hand and then abruptly let go of Harry’s shoulder.

 

Harry didn’t seem to notice.

 

“I dunno,” he said, sounding as if every word was like having a tooth pulled. “Used to have a few every now and then, when I was small, and then maybe one or two a year since I started Hogwarts. I’ve just started to have a lot more recently.”

 

“Ah,” said Regulus, wishing rather fervently for some sort of manual to materialise and guide him through the process of talking to another person about dreams and feelings and other such horrors.

 

“Do-”, he cleared his throat. “Do you want to talk about it?”

 

“No, thanks,” said Harry quickly, and maybe Regulus should have pressed but he didn’t and was instead rather grateful for the escape.

 

He retreated back to his wall.

 

Harry’s chains clinked and Regulus heard the quiet, sharp, intake of breath but didn’t say anything about that either because nightmares seemed the sort of thing to make a person irritable and Regulus had no particular desire to find himself being shouted at again.

 

“Do you want your glasses back?”, he asked instead. It was a rather reasonable, not-very-feelings-related question, Regulus thought. (And admittedly he felt incredibly nervous whenever he thought too long about the sheer delicacy of the wiry frames in his pocket.)

 

“No. Thanks. I meant it earlier,” said Harry, something which might have been determination edging its way into his voice. “I’ll get them back when we get out of here, and not a moment sooner.”

 

Regulus lifted his shoulder in a (rather uncouth) half-shrug. “Alright, then. Suit yourself.”

 

They were quiet for another few minutes, before Regulus decided that Harry had probably had enough time to recover.

 

He leaned forward slightly and asked, “Do you want to try the Patronus again? I think you’ll get it this time.”

 

“Do you?”, asked Harry, sounding dubious.

 

Regulus nodded, and tried to imbue his tone with as much of Sirius’ Gryffindor confidence and bravado as he could stomach. “I nodded. Yes, I do. Even if you don’t get it this time, you’ll get it today- I _know_ you will.”

 

He must have been fairly successful with said false-bravado, because Harry sounded quite self-assured when he said, “Alright, then. Ready?”

 

Regulus closed his eyes. “Ready.”

 

There was complete silence for a few beats.

 

“Expecto Patronum!”

 

For a moment, the air before Regulus seemed to get marginally warmer and perhaps there was even a spark of light.

 

Harry gasped.

 

And then the possible-light fizzled out and the warmth faded.

 

There was still no Patronus.

 

“Well, it’s definitely progress,” remarked Regulus, somewhat impressed despite himself.

 

“I _felt_ something that time- almost like the last time I did accidental magic,” said Harry, some semblance of wonder in his tone.

 

“When was that?”, asked Regulus, curiosity piqued. “Five years ago?”

 

“About two,” said Harry, sounding rather embarrassed.

 

Regulus snorted. “What did you do- crack a window?”

 

“I can’t really remember all of it- I think I might have made the lights flicker a bit- but I made Aunt Marge’s glass explode in her hand, and then I-er-blew up Aunt Marge,” said Harry, sounding half-nostalgic, half-rueful.

 

Regulus gaped at the darkness. “You _blew up_ your Aunt?”

 

“Yeah,” said Harry, not sounding at all concerned anymore. “Like a balloon- she just swelled up and started floating around the ceiling- she’s fine now, though- they fixed her. I thought I’d be expelled for sure for that one.”

 

“Christ, Harry.”

 

“Thanks, Regulus.”

 

“Do you want to try the spell again, then? Seeing as you have more of an idea of what you’re doing now.”

 

“Yeah, alright. You lied to me, by the way,” said Harry, conversationally. “This isn’t easy at all, and your dad doesn’t do it all that often, does he?”

 

Regulus blinked, briefly considered lying further, and then gave a mental shrug.

 

“I might have- only _possibly,_ mind- twisted certain truths in order to inspire you- all with our very noble goal in mind, of course. I’ve seen my father do wandless magic twice- he just cast Nox on some of the downstairs lamps. Not terribly impressive.”

 

“It’s _kind of_ impressive,” said Harry.

 

Regulus stared at him- or rather, in his general direction- flatly.

 

“No it isn’t, Harry, Now get casting.”

 

Harry huffed.

 

“I rolled my eyes at you,” he informed Regulus, sounding nearly fond.

 

Regulus closed his eyes and bit back a small smile. “Think happy thoughts, Harry.”

 

“Expecto Patronum!”

 

A small spark.

 

“Expecto Patronum!”

 

Nothing.

 

“Expecto Patronum!”

 

Nothing.

 

“Expecto Patronum!”

 

A small spark.

 

On and on the cycle went.

 

Regulus stopped bothering to keep his eyes shut after the first few tries, instead marvelling at the tiny silver spark.

 

Harry got more and more frustrated after each incantation.

 

There was one brief, tantalising, moment about half-way though where Harry produced a little cloud, which had blinded both of them before it fizzled out. Harry had yet to repeat that success.

 

“Perhaps,” Regulus offered during a lull in what could be seen as either failed spell-casting or successful swear-fests, “we should take a break.”

 

Harry let out an aggravated sound, but before he could answer there was a quiet pop from the other end of the cell.

 

Harry sighed. “Alright, then- let’s have dinner.”

 

‘Dinner’ was exactly the same as it had been the last time- right down to Regulus nearly stepping in it and spilling it on himself repeatedly. It still tasted like some sort of vile stew-porridge.

 

There was a bit of a pause, after Regulus had finished disgracing himself in the name of nutrition. An expectant sort of pause, where Harry seemed to be on the verge of saying something but was apparently waiting for something else first.

 

Unless the something else was Regulus’ silent attention, then it never actually happened.

 

Eventually, Harry said quietly, “We’re the only ones left down here.”

 

“Are we?”

 

“Yeah. Back at the start, there was the girl who screamed all the time- there was something wrong with her, I think. She couldn’t talk, just scream- and another girl who was always covered in a crackling current which made her look like she was constantly being shocked, and an old man with no teeth and flowers growing on the backs of his hands, and a woman who still had accidental magic even though she was thirty-something and hadn’t ever gotten her Hogwarts letter.

 

“But- but, the screaming stopped ages before you came, and the cells were empty since right before you got here. I don’t know where they are, what happened to them. But it’s just us now, and I still haven’t worked out why we’re here at all.”

 

Regulus’ heart had relocated to the bottom of his stomach, and there was a tight knot of dread, right in the centre of his chest.

 

He chewed his lip in thought for a moment, ignoring the part of him which started to hiss about propriety.

 

“It doesn’t matter, why we’re here,” he said eventually. “It doesn’t matter, what they thought was so special about us. And it doesn’t matter that we’re the last ones left, either. We’re getting out of here, Harry, if it’s the last thing I do.”

 

His words seemed to hang in the air for a moment. Regulus’ cheeks started to burn at the sheer melodrama of it all, and he wondered if Sirius had somehow managed to jinx him from wherever he was.

 

“Yeah?”, asked Harry, voice quiet and (surprisingly) not sounding as if he was trying not to laugh.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Then me too- can’t let you have all the fun.”

 

There was a beat of silence.

 

“You should really write that line down, Regulus,” said Harry, tone brightening. “You could use it in your memoirs, or whatever it is that posh people write when they’re old.”

 

“Piss off, Harry,” said Regulus, not sounding anywhere near as serious as he would have liked.

 

The pair retreated back to what Regulus was starting to think of as being _their_ side of the cell, and settled down into their usual positions.

 

 _When we get out of here, I’m going to have a really long bath, and then lie all stretched out on my mattress,_ Regulus decided, legs now thoroughly sick of being squished into the narrow part of the cell.

 

Harry seemed reluctant to get straight back into things, staying quiet and drumming his fingers on the floor.

 

When he finally broke the silence, it was to ask Regulus, “What’s your family like?”

 

Regulus blinked. “I’m sorry?”

 

“Well you said that you had a brother in Gryffindor, so what else do you have?”

 

Regulus didn’t answer for a long moment, trying to decide if there was any real point in lying. It wasn’t as if anyone would ever _know_ that he’d been talking about them.

 

“Well, I live in London.”

 

“Specific.”

 

“Shut up. I live in a town-house. We’re an old family, wealthy, so my house isn’t the only one we’ve got. There’s more by the sea, and out the country and that, though my cousins and the like are usually living in them.”

 

“Have you got a lot of those?”

 

“Cousins?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Er, yes, actually. A lot of cousins, and second cousins, and third cousins, and aunts, and great-uncles, and all that. I don’t really know most of them though- a lot of them are a lot older than me, or live abroad. I’m only really friendly with the youngest cousins, and only one of those, anymore.”

 

“Oh. I’ve only got one cousin- Dudley. We’re about the same age, though we don’t get on. What else?”

 

“Er, let’s see. We’re very traditional, I suppose. We do things and celebrate things the same way that we’ve always done them, and we’re supposed to value things which might seem a little bit old-fashioned now, like sword-fighting and flower language and all that. Some of my older relatives are very set in their ways- the world might as well be the same now as it was in 1857 for them. My brother, he’s the oldest. He was supposed to take over managing the finances and that, after Father dies. I suppose that I’ll have to do it now, though. He ran away, one of the last days that I remember, and said that- that he’s never coming back. I think Mother formally disowned him.”

 

“Oh,” said Harry. “I’m, er, sorry about that.”

 

Regulus cocked a brow, unimpressed. “That was a positively painful condolence.”

 

“I know,” muttered Harry. “I’m not great with this sort of thing- never learned it like everyone else apparently did, and I can’t exactly relate, either.”

 

Regulus sniffed. “This is all going in my autobiography, just so you know. Chapter Seventeen, perhaps. _‘Painful Condolences and Awkward Cellmates’_ has a rather nice ring to it.”

 

Harry let out a short, quick-lived, laugh- a warm, cheerful, thing.

 

“It’s alright,” Regulus said. “He’s a bit of an arse, anyway. Even when he isn’t picking fights just because he can. Sometimes-”

 

Regulus’ voice caught for a moment.

 

“Sometimes I think that I might hate my parents a little bit,” whispered Regulus as quickly as he could. It wasn’t a new thought, more something which had started to crop up more and more frequently in the last few years. He usually tried his best to ignore it, or put it down to teenage emotions and too much time around Sirius.

 

Regulus cleared his throat, and tried to pushed past it. “What about you Harry? Any more terribly-named siblings? I’m expecting a Mary, and possibly a Joe as well.”

 

(He very carefully did not think about what he had just said about his parents- what he _couldn’t_ possibly have said about them because it was one thing to _think_ such uncharitable and disloyal things, let alone say them out loud.)

 

The laughter had completely faded from Harry’s voice when he said, “I don’t have any siblings. My parents were killed when I was a baby.”

 

“Oh,” said Regulus, floundering for a moment. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”

 

It sounded stiff even to his own ears. He cringed.

 

“That was a positively painful condolence,” said Harry, trying (and rather failing) to imitate Regulus.

 

(For a very brief moment, he sounded incredibly familiar, and Regulus felt as if the name which was eluding him was on the tip of his tongue. And then it faded.)

 

Regulus snorted, before he said, “I really am sorry, though.”

 

“I sort of shrugged, just then. I’m sorry too. I miss them, obviously, and I’ve always wished that they were alive and that things could be different, and that I could have known them, because apparently they were pretty decent people. But for all that wishing, they’re still dead, Regulus. Very dead. And I never knew them at all. So...”

 

Harry trailed off with the verbal equivalent of an awkward shrug.

 

“Alright then,” said Regulus uncertainly. “Er, where did you grow up, then? With whom, I mean.”

 

“I can’t believe you just said ‘whom’,” mumbled Harry.

 

“ _Some_ of us are able to speak, you know.”

 

“Oh, shut up. I grew up with my aunt, uncle, and cousin, in a small Muggle town. Not far from London, actually. My dad was a Pureblood, but he didn’t have any family left, and my godfather who was meant to take me wound up getting arrested, so I went to my mum’s last family- her sister, my Aunt Petunia.”

 

“Two Mu-Muggleborns in one family?”

 

“No. My mum was _the_ witch. Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and Dudley are all Muggles.”

 

“Oh,” said Regulus hollowly, starting to feel very discomfited indeed. If Harry noticed, he didn’t let on. (Harry did that a lot, Regulus had come to realise. It was hard to tell if Harry really was _that_ oblivious or if he simply didn’t care.)

 

“We don’t really get on at all,” Harry admitted in a low voice. “I don’t think we ever have. I used to hope when I was younger, but-”

 

Harry cleared his throat.

 

“ _Anyway,_ they always liked Dudley much more than me. He was always spoiled rotten too, and a bit of a bully. Used to knock me around a lot when we were younger- he’d probably still be trying to do it now if he wasn’t so scared that I’d curse him. They’re all terrified of magic, actually. Like to pretend that it doesn’t exist. Aunt Petunia’s got some sort of _thing_ about my mum having been a witch, though she never talks about it, and Uncle Vernon doesn’t like things which aren’t the way he thinks they should be. That’s most things, to be honest. I don’t miss any of them- doubt they really care that I’ve up and vanished either.”

 

“Oh,” said Regulus again. “Harry, I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but your relatives sound rather _‘less than ideal’,_ and then some.”

 

“Er, thanks. I think. It’s not all bad, though- I met my godfather again the end of Third Year, and I like him loads more than the Dursleys even though we don’t really know each other that well. He said that I could live with him, but then he had to go on the run. I miss _him,_ definitely. And my best friends- Ron and Hermione. And Ron’s family- they’re all great.”

 

Regulus blinked. “Your godfather escaped Azkaban?”

 

There was a pause, and something slightly strange about Harry’s voice when he said, “Muggles have prisons too, you know.”

 

“Oh, right. Family reunions must be _delightful._ ”

 

Harry huffed out a sort of laugh, and then said, “Are you ready to try the Patronus again? I’ve got a good feeling about this one.”

 

 _Like you did about all those other ones?,_ Regulus didn’t say (even though he wanted to) because Harry seemed more confident about this than he had been this entire awful(ish) experience.

 

“Yes,” said Regulus. “Just tell me when you’re ready.”

 

They were both quiet for a long minute.

 

Regulus mentally ran over the message for Sirius, even though at this point he knew the bloody thing off by heart.

 

“Expecto Patronum!”

 

Regulus (who, rather unwisely, had had his eyes open at this point) caught a glimpse of a huge silver animal before he had to wrench his teary, burning, eyes shut.

 

_Four legs- a horse, maybe?_

 

He could still see the glow of the Patronus through his eyelids.

 

“Now, Regulus- before I lose it,” urged Harry, starting to sound a bit strained already.

 

“It’s me, Regulus,” said Regulus to the Patronus (and Harry), feeling rather self-conscious. “I’m in a spot of bother- I can’t quite remember why but it’s probably your fault. I’ve been abducted- come as soon as you can, with your usual fighting spirit. Use your _connections,_ and be ready for two- I’ve got a cellmate who’s coming too. Just follow the Patronus- it’ll wait for you.”

 

Regulus took a deep breath and said goodbye to the last of his dignity. _“Please hurry.”_

 

“Find Regulus’ brother as quickly as you can,” said Harry to the Patronus (and Regulus), sounding pained. “Wait for him and lead him back here. Don’t talk to anyone but him.”

 

The Patronus flickered slightly, and then the glow momentarily brightened. The air before Regulus warmed and he was reminded briefly of Quidditch games and Chocolate Frogs, and then the light disappeared.

 

Harry and Regulus were now alone in the dark, grinning to themselves at their achievement.

 

“Hang on,” said Harry, sounding absolutely spent. “We didn’t say his name- d’you think it’ll matter?”

 

Regulus frowned, furious with himself for not having thought of that, and for his own unwillingness to reveal his true identity to Harry.

 

“I have no idea.”

 

“I’ll try ‘n do another one,” said Harry, before mumbling, “Expecto Patronum.”

 

Absolutely nothing happened.

 

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” said Regulus, not really believing it.

 

“Yeah?”, came the drowsy reply.

 

“Yeah. Goodnight, Harry.”

 

“G’night, Reg’lus.”


	8. Going (Nowhere Fast): Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Biggest of thank you's to everyone who's left their mark on this story, be it through Kudos or just adding one more number to the hits counter. You are all wonderful.
> 
> The Blacks make a proper appearance in this chapter, brief as it is. They should come with their own warning label. Implied/referenced drug abuse, emotional barrage of abuse (even if the true target can't actually hear any of it right now) and minor violence.
> 
> Also, Regulus is Annoyed and Conflicted and perhaps a touch impulsive sometimes. Happens to the best of us.

**13th July 1975**

When Regulus got up the next morning, it was to discover that despite  the tumultuous events  of yesterday , the world still seemed startlingly ordinary.

 

The house was quiet, which was hardly unusual for a Sunday morning.

 

Mother and Father usually spent Sunday mornings in bed, or in the study, or in their sitting room, doing whatever it was that they liked to do in their spare time. Regulus could easily make it until lunchtime- until dinnertime, in the summer- before he saw them.

 

Kreacher was at his beck and call, of course, and would spend the better part of an hour patiently listening to complaints about school before he was needed elsewhere, bless him.

 

And there were always the portraits if you fancied a slightly stilted, repetitive, conversation about family values and the like.

 

Sirius being gone hardly affected the quiet solitude of Sunday mornings anyway, because Sirius usually spent the better part of the holidays staying with friends or shut up in his room, avoiding everyone. Though Sirius usually ventured out for lunch to either ignore Regulus entirely, make slightly too sharp comments- usually when Mother and Father were present- or pretend that he and Regulus were still as close as they had been before he’d let it all go to shit.

 

Regulus twisted his mouth, annoyed, and tried to shake the thoughts away.

 

He found himself coming to a stop just outside his bedroom.

 

Hesitantly, Regulus looked down the hallway.

 

Someone (probably Kreacher) had closed Sirius’ door during the night.

 

And with the door closed, it was almost like any other Sunday.

 

Almost as if Sirius had never said all of those things downstairs yesterday.

 

Almost as if he had never left 12 Grimmauld Place (and Regulus) behind.

 

Almost as if if he just opened the door, his older brother would snap at him for entering without knocking- like  _ he  _ ever knocked- and hurriedly hide whatever it was that he had been looking at, and then proceed to annoy him until he left.

 

Regulus’ feet carried him down the hallway, until he was standing right where he had yesterday, listening to Sirius rage about inside.

 

Regulus opened the door.

 

There was no familiar cry of  _ “Regulus!”,  _ no hastily hidden papers, no stupid joke.

 

There was just Regulus standing in the doorway of his brother’s explosively Gryffindor bedroom, staring at the unmade bed and swirling dust motes.

 

Something sore twinged in Regulus’ chest.

 

He shut the door with a dull bang, and the house seemed much more lonely that it had a moment before, Sunday morning or no.

 

Then, on a whim, Regulus hurried down the stairs, and crept into a room which Mother usually kept under lock and key. The fact that it was still unlocked- had been unlocked at all- should have been all the answer he needed.

 

The Black family tapestry was as grand and imposing as ever, save for the brand-new scorch mark near the bottom, identical to the one between cousins Bellatrix and Narcissa.

 

Underneath Walburga Cassiopeia ( _b. 1924_ ) and Orion Antares ( _b. 1927_ ) Black now was a rather conspicuous patch of burned wallpaper, and Regulus Arcturus Black II ( _b. 1961_ ).

 

_She really did it._

 

There was no trace of Sirius Orion Black III ( _b. 1959_ ) left on Regulus’ family tree.

 

It was, Regulus distantly reflected, very nearly as if he had been an only child.

 

And there had never been any Dungbombs under Aunt Lucretia’s chair.

 

And there had never been anyone to make faces at Regulus when he was supposed to be learning how to write.

 

And no one had ever made Uncle Alphard laugh so hard he nearly choked.

 

And no one had ever shouted horrible things at Mother and Father.

 

And there had never been anyone to break Regulus’ first racing broom, and then give him their one as well as a box of Fire Imps to cheer him up.

 

And the old clothes screen- the one embroidered with a slightly disturbing scene of a man being gored to death by a Hippogryff- had never been ‘accidentally’ destroyed by an anvil and a Summoning Charm.

 

And there had never been an aggressively Gryffindor bedroom.

 

Regulus swallowed.

 

The sore thing twinged again.

 

Regulus left the room hurriedly, and quietly shut the door after himself.

 

He made his way down to the dining room, slouching in a way which would have made Father’s eye twitch and Mother’s lips press together tightly if they had seen it.

 

(Sirius would have smirked and made some sort of comment about having finally worn him down.)

 

Regulus sat on his own at his usual seat, opposite Sirius’. He wondered if he was going to have to swap at the next big family dinner.

 

The dining room seemed much darker than usual.

 

“Kreacher!”

 

The wizened house-elf appeared with a muted pop.

 

“Yes, Master Regulus?”

 

“Where are my parents?”

 

Kreacher looked away for a moment, ears twitching. “They are indisposed, Master Regulus. Would Master Regulus care for his tea and toast?”

 

Regulus pulled a face, safe in the knowledge that Kreacher wouldn’t reprimand him. He couldn’t quite stomach the idea of his usual Sunday morning fare.

 

“Just tea, please, Kreacher. I’ll drink it in my room.”

 

Kreacher wrung his hands together. “Mistress wouldn’t like-”

 

“Yes, well,” said Regulus, trying to keep his irritation at the world in general from spilling over into his voice, “what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.”

 

Kreacher nodded. “Yes, Master Regulus.”

 

“Thank you, Kreacher.”

 

Kreacher let out a pleased, squeaky, sort of sound, and popped away again. Regulus smiled, despite himself, and then retreated to the safety of his bedroom.

 

By the time he got there, there was already a steaming cup of tea on the desk.

 

Regulus opened his curtains, winced at the sudden deluge of sunshine, and then sat down at his desk, intending to get some of his homework out of the way. Almost against his will, his gaze roved around the room until it landed on his bookshelf, and one thick volume in particular.

 

_The Importance of Pure Blood in Wizarding Politics_ seemed horribly incriminating all of a sudden.

 

Regulus let out a frustrated breath, and gulped down half his tea in a very uncivilised manner. (Mother and Father would not have approved.)

 

He crossed the room, pulled Sirius’ letter out of the book, and after a brief moment of toying with the seal, ripped the envelope open.

 

_Reg,_ greeted Sirius’ precise letters, and Regulus rolled his eyes at the childish nickname.  It was one thing to  _say_ the bloody thing, quite another to actually  _write_ it.

 

After a quick glance, it looked to be a rather long letter, so Regulus sat down on his bed with it.

 

_Look, it’s less than ideal if you’re reading this, rather than me just telling you. I wanted to just tell you, really. Never was one for all this cloak and dagger business._

 

Regulus snorted at the blatant lie, because Sirius was often needlessly dramatic, but kept reading.

 

_I wanted to tell you, but it just never seemed to be the right tine or place. So if you’re reading this then we’re already at school (in which case keep this well hidden- I don’t trust any of those smarmy little sycophants you share a room with any further than I could curse them) or else I’ve finally had enough and left and you’re cooped up in your room (in which case keep this well hidden because I’m not sure if Kreacher’s weird fondness for you outweighs how much he hates me)._

 

_If I’ve left then for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for leaving you on your own. I know that won’t really make you feel any better, but still. I’m also sorry for leaving you on your own all those times I’ve been in the same house as you, too._

 

_Enough fannying about._

 

Regulus made a slightly choked sound, and tried to force the small smile from his face.

 

_Enough fannying about. Reg, I’m sorry to tell you this- I know how it physically pains you to think ill of the Noble and Most Ancient Bollocks- but I came across something in the study when I was back for those few days at Christmas._

 

_Something which really doesn’t seem all that legal._

 

_(And before you get all uppity with me over legality, you should know that it would probably offend your- and most people’s- sense of morality.)_

 

_And it doesn’t really paint Father in all that great a light either._

 

_You don’t have to believe me- I know you probably won’t because you seem to think that I have some sort of unfounded vendetta against the man. I wonder if you’re wilfully ignorant sometimes. That’s not the point though. The point_ is  _that I found a ledger, a lot of it in some sort of code. I’ve always been good with those. Remember the ones we used to come up with?_

 

_I found the ledger- which probably isn’t there anymore because he started looking at me funny a few days after I found it- and I did some digging in Knockturn Alley._

 

_\- there’s something very wrong going on down there. There were a load of letters from 16 Knockturn Alley (it’s three doors down from Borgin and Burke’s) -_

 

_\- you don’t have to believe me, Reg. You don’t have to look for those letters or the ledger or go to Knockturn. Uncharacteristic as it is, I think I might have to do something that an up-standing citizen would do; the Aurors have a confidential owling system._

 

_\- I’m not saying that I’m going to do anything. Yet. I still have to get more proof. But in case I’m right, then you should know in advance because you’re a_ Black,  _and who’d ever believe that a Black didn’t know about something like this being paid for by his own father? We’d never get off that lightly. Maybe think about staying with your friends for a bit, or whatever it is that you Slytherins call your Housemates. Acquaintances? Contacts?_

 

_I know it’s your life’s ambition to join those masked lunatics and kick puppies and the like, Reg. And I know that at this point I can’t really do much to talk you out of it. But I’m just saying that maybe Father isn’t as distanced from all of it as he’s always said, and maybe What’s-his-Name mightn’t be keeping his hands as clean as he says he is in the pursuit of blood purity and ‘preserving our noble traditions’ or whatever that crock of shite he’s selling is. I usually stop listening around the justification of incest and child-murder, to be honest._

 

_Just- be careful, Regulus. Don’t jump into anything head-first; you’re not a Gryffindor, remember?_

 

_I’ll see you around._

 

_Love,_

_Sirius_

 

Regulus flung the letter down, buried his face in his pillow, and let out a string of muffled expletives which his mother most definitely would not have approved of.

 

_Fucking Sirius._

 

_Father isn’t- the Dark Lord isn’t- the fucking Aurors, really Sirius? You fucking traitor. You absolute, fucking wa-_

 

Regulus dropped the pillow, grabbed Sirius’ letter, and violently crumpled it into the smallest, tightest, ball that he could make, hands shaking slightly.

 

He wouldn’t rip it up, not yet.

 

Not until he needed it as proof- of what? That Sirius was a paranoid, deluded, arsehole who just _had_ to be different and holier-than-thou and couldn’t leave _anything_ alone? Hardly news, Regulus.

 

Regulus stood up, made his way across the room in several quick strides, and all but threw himself back onto his chair behind the desk in a manner most unbecoming for a young wizard of his station.

 

_Fucking Sirius._

 

Regulus furiously slurped his now only lukewarm tea and thumped the cup down forcefully. The balled up letter went inside his school trunk, and Regulus angrily read his Potions textbook, trying to focus long enough on Moonstones to finish Slughorn’s asinine essay. _(Circe’s tits, who care_ _s_ _about Moonstones anyway?)_

 

He couldn’t get either his eyes or his thoughts to stay on the book for very long though.

 

Fucking Sirius just _had_ to go and try to put doubts in his head about _Father_ of all people- just because _he_ had some sort of unresolved issue with the man.

 

_Sirius is wrong, because Sirius is always wrong, and that’s that,_ said a rather angry voice  in Regulus’ head, which didn’t sound too unlike Father  now that he thought about it.

 

_But Sirius isn’t an idiot either- why would he make up something so convoluted and then only half-explain it if he was just trying to turn you against Father?,_ whispered a voice which sounded a bit like Regulus sometimes worried he sounded like- nervous, questioning, and very young.

 

_Well he seems to be doing a pretty great job of it so far!_

 

_But what if he’s right? He doesn’t usually lie to your face- not even through letters._

 

_Sirius has a warped perception of the world, Mother said._

 

_Oh, Mother said, did she?,_ said a new voice, rather snidely. It sounded a bit like Sirius did, when he was in one of his more disagreeable moods. _Well Mother would know best, wouldn’t she? Thank goodness you have Mother there to tell you these things- who knows how you’d manage otherwise. Does she wipe your arse for you too?_

 

Regulus slammed his Potions book shut, and thunked his head onto the desk.

 

_Fucking Sirius._

 

After a moment of studying the wood grain of his desk, which blurred in and out of focus, and trying to ignore the Sirius voice- which was currently implying that he was a huge coward- Regulus sat up.

 

He turned his gaze to the grey Muggle world outside the window, idly twirling his quill in his fingers.

 

One of those Muggle contraptions- not quite a car, but not exactly a bus either- drove past. Regulus watched it go with slightly more interest than he probably should have had.

 

_I could go to Knockturn- just to see. I’d see if Sirius is right and then-_

 

_\- you’d probably get robbed. Or murdered,_ said the Father voice, interrupting sort-of-Regulus.

 

_I can handle myself,_ protested sort-of-Regulus.  _I’m a Slytherin- I’m a_ Black.  _If you keep your head up and your mouth shut, you can make it through a lot of things._

 

_This isn’t the same as avoiding the older Gryffindors and scaring First Year Hufflepuffs._

 

_I’m not an idiot._

 

_Are you sure?,_ said kind-of-Sirius. _Perhaps you should ask Mother, when you go to ask her for permission to poke around in Knockturn Alley by yourself. I’m sure she’ll be_ thrilled.

 

Regulus sighed, aggravated, and dragged a hand down over his face. “Fucking Sirius.”

 

Regulus stood up suddenly, and made for the door.

 

A walk and some of that toast he hadn’t wanted might resolve matters, he decided. Kreacher would be pleased, at least.

 

Regulus shut the door behind him, turned towards the stairs, and then stopped short, suddenly face to face with his mother.

 

(The last few weeks had seen Regulus stretch nearly three inches so far. He was now as tall as his mother, which was incredibly unnerving.)

 

“Oh! Good morning, Mother,” said Regulus, mind drifting back to Sirius’ letter and his own indecision and feeling inexplicably guilty.

 

Walburga Black didn’t return the greeting, or really acknowledge Regulus at all. She merely stood there and stared right through him with her dark, dark, eyes. Sirius had called them tunnels, once. Regulus could suddenly see why.

 

“Mother? Are you alright?”

 

Walburga stayed quiet, still staring intently at him. Her black curls were somewhat askew, and her dressing-gown clumsily tied. Regulus’ gaze was drawn to the dark shadows under her blood-shot eyes, and the small grey smudge on the end of her nose.

 

All in all, Regulus’ mother seemed very unlike her usual ly put together,  elegantly beautiful self.

 

“Regulus?”, said Mother suddenly, eyes still distant.

 

“Yes, Mother?”

 

“Regulus, is that you?”, asked Mother, and Regulus smelled her overly-sweet breath and realised very suddenly that his Mother was _‘not quite herself’,_ as Father usually put it.

 

Regulus nodded distantly.

 

It wasn’t unusual, after an especially loud argument with Sirius, for Walburga Black to retreat to her dressing room and take comfort in several silvery snuff-boxes, most of which contained something a bit stronger than snuff.

 

Regulus suddenly felt very uneasy.

 

It was usually his father who saw Mother like this, or Sirius, ‘looking to rub salt in the wound’, as Mother often said.

 

(Sirius usually argued back that he had just been minding his own business, and was he not allowed to walk about his own house without being accused of trying to start a fight? This in turn usually sparked an argument.)

 

Regulus’ encounters with this version of his mother were limited to passing her, silent and pale as a ghost, in the hallways, and over-hearing his father’s quiet, soothing, tones and Sirius’ disparaging half-angry, half-fearful, remarks.

 

“Regulus,” said Mother, her voice suddenly turning hard and her eyes finally properly meeting his. “Regulus, where are you going?”

 

Taken slightly off-guard, Regulus took perhaps a second too long to reply.

 

“Just to the dining room, Mother- I was hungry.”

 

Walburga narrowed her eyes at him. Despite knowing, logically, that they were a dark brown, Regulus thought that his mother’s eyes seemed as black  as a Dementor’s cloak at that moment, and only half as comforting.

 

“You’re not lying to me, are you Regulus? You wouldn’t do that to your dear old mum, would you? Not like _he_ would.”

 

Mother stepped closer. Regulus found  himself taking a step back.

 

Her voice was very insistent when she asked, “You wouldn’t run away too, would you? Only  _cowards_ run-  _cowards and traitors.”_

 

Regulus shook his head. “No, I wouldn-”

 

“Lies!”, shrieked Walburga suddenly, stepping even closer to Regulus, who retreated back up against his bedroom door.

 

“You _are,_ aren’t you?” Something darkly triumphant gleamed in Mother’s eyes. “You’re going to run away- like _Sirius.”_

 

“No!”, protested Regulus, starting to feel ever so slightly afraid, and hating himself for it. “No, I wouldn’t r-”

 

“ _Liar!_ You’re _always_ lying to me, Sirius. Always telling lies and breaking things and _running!”_

 

Walburga seized both of his arms in a deathly-tight grip, even as Regulus shook his head again. There was just a hint of panic in his voice when he said, “I’m not-”

 

“ _Why,_ Sirius?”, demanded Walburga, voice angry and oddly desperate as she started to shake Regulus. Her cheeks were flushed and she seemed to be looking past him again, even as her dark, dark, eyes drilled into him.

 

“ _Why can you never do what you’re told? Why do you always- always!- lie and run? You coWARD! FILTH OF MY FLESH! YOU DISGUS-”_

 

“ _Ah!”_

 

Regulus winced and blinked stars out of his vision, the side of his head throbbing painfully. His mother’s shaking had unexpectedly increased in fervour, and Regulus had lost his balance and cracked his temple off of the door-frame.

 

“ _Oh,”_ said Mother softly, dark eyes still boring into him but more focused than before. She stopped shaking him immediately, though didn’t let go of his forearms.

 

“Oh, Regulus, my darling boy, I’m so _sorry_ \- Mother didn’t mean to- oh, sweetness, my little star, you’d never run, would you? Not _you_ \- _never_ my perfect son- you’d never carry on like _that,_ like a-a- oh, I’m so terribly _sorry,_ Regulus, my good boy- my perfect, _perfect,_ son-”

 

“Walburga,” interrupted Father’s velvety tones.

 

Mother immediately turned from Regulus, letting go of him at last, to where Father had just emerged from the shadowed staircase.

 

“Oh, Orion. Dearest. I was just-”

 

“I know, darling, I know. Come, let’s return to bed- you must be so exhausted after your ordeal,” said Orion, gently steering Walburga towards the stairs and leaving Regulus wide-eyed and blinking against his bedroom door.

 

“Yes- yes, you’re right, dear. I’ve gotten myself all worked up again, haven’t I?”

 

Walburga giggled then, and Regulus nearly recoiled at the unfamiliar sound.

 

Where on earth had his  refined and controlled mother gone?

 

“It’s quite alright, darling. These things happen to the best of us, and you _have_ had a terribly difficult last few days,” said Father, as he and Mother made their way up the stairs.

 

Mother murmured something inaudible. Father rubbed her back.

 

He glanced back at Regulus, and their eyes met as Father said, softly, “Children can be so selfishly thoughtless, sometimes, when they make their choices in life.”

 

The something in Regulus’ chest twinged for the third time that morning, and he said suddenly, fuelled by a mix between bravery and foolishness, “Father, I’m going into Diagon Alley tomorrow- to meet with friends.”

 

Mother shifted slightly in Father’s grip.

 

“Is that Sirius?”, she asked, sounding distressed. _“Sirius, that little q-”_

 

“No, darling,” said Father, stroking Mother’s back soothingly.

 

He looked down at Regulus again. “I’m not so sure that you should, Regulus. This seems awfully sudden- you know how we worry for you.”

 

The something gave one last almighty twist, as if it had snapped.

 

Regulus looked his father in the eye and lied, “But you had already agreed, don’t you remember? I asked you yesterday, after lunch. Before all of the, ah, _excitement._ ”

 

Orion’s face darkened for a moment, and Walburga muttered something very violent-sounding about what she should have done to Sirius- _that ungrateful whelp, traitor to my blood-_ the day before.

 

Orion’s face cleared again.

 

“Oh, yes, of course, Regulus. It had completely slipped my mind. Yes, do go tomorrow- I’m sure it’ll do you good to see your friends again,” said Father, before turning his attention back to Mother, who was still mumbling to herself. “Yes dearest, but _do_ remember what the Healer said about your breathing exercises, hmm?”

 

“Will that be all?”, Father called back over his shoulder. He didn’t look back at Regulus- he just continued to escort Mother up the stairs.

 

“Yes,” said Regulus, though Father gave no indication that he had heard, or that he would have stopped if Regulus had said ‘No’.

 

And then Walburga and Orion Black were out of sight, and Regulus was left standing in the hallway and feeling oddly as if he had just been dismissed.

 

It wasn’t a good feeling.

 


	9. (Going) Nowhere Fast: Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! To everyone who has read this story, left a comment or a kudo, bookmarked this story or the series, or subscribed to me, I thank you from the very bottom of my heart. You're absolutely fantastic, and you brighten my day every time I see how much has happened since I last logged in. So again, thank you.
> 
> Final chapter for (Going) Nowhere Fast, and I'm a little bit nervous posting it, seeing as I know so many people are paying attention to this story now and I wrote the final draft of this chapter whilst more than slightly stressed. I might come back and try to improve it one day, but today is not that day.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!

**21st July 1975**

For the third time since Regulus had first come to find himself in the dark cell- which seemed like an achingly long time ago now- the door scraped open, and in came a stream of painful light.

 

And (after a moment) Harry.

 

There was a now-familiar metallic sound- chains being spelled back on, perhaps?- and then the door slammed shut. Regulus’ eyes were grateful, even if the rest of him wasn’t.

 

“Yeah, fuck you too,” muttered Harry bitterly, before he started to make his way towards their end of the cell. It seemed to be taking him longer than usual.

 

“Alright?”, asked Regulus, as Harry’s slightly laboured breathing came closer.

 

“Yeah,” said Harry, before he mumbled something inaudible. “ _Fuck it._ Alright, no, not really. I’m pretty sore and tired, actually, and if I don’t sit down soon I might just fall down.”

 

Regulus’ eyes widened at the unusual candour. “What happened?”

 

“They’re starting to get sick of me- I fell over a lot more than usual. I’ll be fine,” said Harry, not sounding at all concerned.

 

Finally, Harry was next to Regulus. Regulus pulled in his legs to let his cellmate pass, but for once Harry didn’t stumble into his favourite corner.

 

Instead, he sank down onto the floor from where he was standing. Right next to Regulus.

 

“I take it you don’t want your glasses back yet,” said Regulus, more out of habit and an attempt to lighten the moment than anything else.

 

“No,” said Harry. “Not yet.”

 

Harry’s chains dragged over the ground, and then all of a sudden he was leaning against Regulus rather heavily.

 

Regulus froze, very unsure of how to react to this breach of their unspoken code of conduct concerning physical contact- namely, that it didn’t happen unless things were especially dire, or someone was nearly asleep.

 

“D’you mind?”, asked Harry, sounding tired and a bit unsure of himself. “My back’s killing me, and the wall’s cold.”

 

It was very unlike Harry to actually admit to discomfort, especially in such an outright manner.

 

“Er, no. No, it’s fine- just move your head a bit; you’re crushing me. Yeah- yes, that’s better.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

They were quiet, as they often were, for a moment, before Harry said, “If your brother hasn’t turned up by the next time there’s food, we should just try and escape ourselves- I think you’d be better at it than me.”

 

He didn’t offer to cast another Patronus. Regulus didn’t ask about it.

 

“Yeah, alright,” said Regulus. “Punch the tall one with the limp- I remember.”

 

Harry huffed out a half laugh. “Good. Make sure you make it count.”

 

There was another silence, in which Regulus was very aware of Harry’s glasses still in his pocket, and the weight of Harry’s head on his shoulder, and the fact that Harry would probably have an objection or two if he tried to shift around and find a more comfortable patch of floor.

 

Harry stirred slightly, and started to ask, “D’you think that-”

 

He was interrupted by a rather loud, dull, bang from somewhere outside.

 

Regulus frowned, hope foolishly starting to stir once more. “What-”

 

There was another bang, closer this time.

 

Harry sat up.

 

 _Fuck it,_ said Regulus’ internal optimist, and Regulus stood up.

 

“Come on Harry- this must be it. It has to be- we’re finally getting out of here! Come on!”

 

Regulus, after a moment in which Harry failed to stand up very quickly, hauled his cellmate upright by the shoulders and started to hurry towards the door, a loose hold on Harry’s forearm all the while.

 

(He felt more than slightly guilty when Harry started to wheeze.)

 

Their run- more of a numb-legged stagger, really- was cut off very abruptly as Regulus reached the end of his chain; he nearly tripped but couldn’t bring himself to care.

 

Listening very carefully, Regulus could just make out- over the hammering of his own heart and Harry’s quiet gasps- a voice shouting, “Expelliarmus!”, and then another calling out, “Stupefy!”

 

Harry must have heard it too, because he said, wonderingly, “This really is it.”

 

Regulus nodded. “It really is.”

 

There was another distant “Stupefy!”

 

And then everything went quiet.

 

Deadly quiet.

 

Regulus’ heart lurched in a way which didn’t seem very healthy, and the sickly feeling of disappointment rose up to war with hope.

 

The silence stretched on for what seemed like a painfully long time- an eternity of fading hope, in which Harry got his breath back.

 

And then someone called out, muffled by the door, “Regulus!”

 

Hope won the battle, all of a sudden.

 

“Regulus!”

 

“Here!”, shouted Regulus.

 

“Regulus?”

 

The voice didn’t sound any closer.

 

“Here!”

 

“Regulus?”

 

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” said Harry all of a sudden. “Put some effort into it, like this: HERE! HE’S IN HERE!”

 

Regulus flinched, ears ringing, but obligingly started to scream his lungs out. “HERE! I’M IN HERE!”

 

“REGULUS?”

 

“HERE! HE’S HERE!”

 

“SIRIUS?”, shouted Regulus. Harry went stiff beside him, but Regulus was a bit too preoccupied to really pay him any heed. “SIRIUS? ARE YOU THERE? WE’RE IN HERE!”

 

The voice was a lot closer all of a sudden, seemingly just outside the door, and it sounded very like Sirius when it asked, “Regulus? Are you in there?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Get back from the door.”

 

Knowing Sirius and his propensity for both destruction and over-doing things simply because he could, Regulus obediently stumbled back a few steps, dragging an oddly silent Harry with him.

 

There were several dull thuds from the other side of the door, what might have been either muttered spells or swear-words, and then a loud, “BOMBARDA MAXIMA!”

 

The door suddenly burst open, and Regulus was slapped in the face with light. It seemed even brighter than it had from the other side of the cell, and his vision instantly blurred with tears. He shielded his poor, abused, eyes with his hands.

 

He couldn’t see a thing, but it was most definitely Sirius’ voice who asked, sounding slightly disbelieving, “Reg? Is that you?”

 

Regulus lowered his hands, but kept his eyes shut. He could still see a lot of light through his eyelids.

 

“Hello, Sirius. Lovely to hear from you, and all that. Now get us out of here, would you?”

 

“Yeah, yeah, of course. Just hold still. Merlin, you’re in a right state, aren’t you? Have they been making you roll around in the dirt? It’s a bit dark in here, isn’t it? How did-”

 

“Sirius,” said Regulus, as calmly as he could. The shackle around his ankle dropped to the floor. “Shut up.”

 

Sirius obligingly shut up. It was a rather unnerving experience.

 

Harry’s chains clattered onto the floor after a few moments, and then Harry asked, somewhat warily, “Did you find our wands?”

 

“Er, no,” said Sirius. “Was I supposed to be looking for them?”

 

“No,” Regulus sighed. “Though it might have helped.”

 

There was a slightly awkward pause.

 

“Oh, yes,” said Regulus, remembering his manners. “Sirius, this is Harry. Harry, this is my brother, Sirius.”

 

“Hello,” said Harry, some unidentified emotion in his voice.

 

“What are you laughing at?”, asked Sirius. “Is it my name? It really _is_ my name, though. After the star. Sirius, brightest star in the sky. Part of-”

 

“Yes, yes, I _know,”_ said Harry, sounding just as he had all those days _(weeks? Surely not.)_ before. “You just surprised me, is all. I didn’t realise it was so popular- my godfather’s called Sirius, too.”

 

“Your godfather the convict?”, Regulus clarified.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Sounds like you in about ten years, Sirius.”

 

“Shut up, Reg,” said Sirius, sounding like himself again. “Your godfather sounds brilliant, by the way.”

 

“I’ll tell him next time I see him. I know where the wands are- we can stop for them on the way out.”

 

“Yeah, alright,” said Sirius. “Lead on.”

 

Regulus tried to open his eyes again and was met with still blindingly painful light.

 

He hissed and shut them again.

 

“Didn’t realise you were a vampire now, Reg.”

 

“Shut up, Sirius.”

 

“Keep your eyes closed for another bit,” said Harry, walking past. “They’ll take another few minutes to adjust- I can barely see what I’m doing, and I was just out in it.”

 

“We’ve been kept completely in the dark,” explained Regulus to where he thought Sirius was. “No light at all since I woke up here.”

 

“Ah,” said Sirius, who was both apparently fighting off a laugh, and not where Regulus had thought he was. “I won’t let you walk into any walls, don’t worry. Not yet, anyway.”

 

“It’s a miracle you weren’t a Hufflepuff,” said Regulus, as Sirius grabbed his arm and started pulling him along. “What with your tender heart and caring nature.”

 

Sirius snorted, but didn’t say anything in reply.

 

They hadn’t been walking for very long before they stopped- only long enough for Regulus to try and fail to open his eyes properly another three times, and for the silence to start to get a bit uncomfortable.

 

“They’re in here,” said Harry. “Inside the desk.”

 

He walked off somewhere to the right, as Regulus and Sirius stayed put, presumably outside of a room of some sort.

 

A drawer slid open.

 

“How do you know where the wands are?”, asked Regulus.

 

“Third escape attempt,” said Harry from some way off. “Knocked the tall one out, kneed the other one in the balls, and sprinted off. Saw the door was open for once and decided to see if I could find a Floo or a broom or something like that. I’d only just found the wands when they caught up with me, so I pretended not to have seen them. They never let me out with less than three guards again.”

 

“Nice,” said Sirius, sounding like he was smiling.

 

“Thanks,” said Harry distractedly.

 

Something rolled around near where Harry was.

 

There was a pause, then, “Is this dark wand yours? There’s mine and two others here- a short pale one, and a longer dark one. Which one’s yours?”

 

“Dark one,” said Regulus, holding out his hand.

 

He’d had his hand out just long enough that he was starting to feel like an idiot when Harry gave it back to him.

 

It felt very reassuring to have his wand back, which warmed up in his hand.

 

A few sparks might have shot out from the end, one or two of which might possibly have hit Sirius, who swore quietly.

 

Regulus smirked.

 

“Right, then. Now that that’s sorted, let’s go before anyone else comes. I think I might have set off a ward or two when I got here,” said Sirius, starting to pull Regulus along again.

 

“Well that’s what the Aurors are for, isn’t it?”, said Regulus.

 

Sirius said nothing for a long moment, as he led Regulus up a set of stairs, and then continued to say nothing as they found themselves on flat ground again.

 

“There _are_ Aurors, aren’t there, Sirius?”

 

“Er,” said Sirius.

 

“Why are you so utterly useless sometimes?”, asked Regulus. “Did I not _say_ to bring the Aurors- to tell Po-fine, _James’_ father to bring the Aurors? Good with codes, my arse.”

 

“I was in a rush,” said Sirius, defensively. “It’s not every day that you have some massive fuck-off Patronus just burst in on you in the loo and then suddenly your little brother’s telling you that he’s been kidnapped, is it?”

 

Regulus let out a very annoyed breath. “You absolute _Gryffindor._ Where are _James’_ parents, then? Speaking of, where _is_ James? Or the other two? Surely _one_ of them would have come downstairs with you- you’re all practically glued together at school.”

 

“Regulus, what would you say if, _hypothetically_ speaking, I hadn’t brought anyone with me- not even James?”

 

“I would say, _hypothetically_ of course, that you’re a reckless idiot with the attention span of an especially forgetful goldfish, and completely useless to boot, and if you were to then tell me that the reason why James isn’t here is because _nobody knows where you are,_ I would wring your hypo-fucking-thetical neck. So, Sirius, why isn’t James- or _one_ of your friends- here with you?”

 

“Excellent question, Regulus. One that I don’t intend to answer, what with still being in my prime and enjoying life and all that.”

 

Regulus ground to a halt all of a sudden, resisting Sirius’ attempts to drag him away.

 

“You useless, fucking, impulsive, _idiot!_ What if you’d died, Sirius? Or what if you’d just gotten locked up too? Then there would’ve been three of us in that cell, and James would probably do something equally as stupid as this because you’re all absolute _fuckwads_ in Gryffindor! And then James’ parents- what with being ancient and everything- would probably have simultaneous heart-attacks and then-”

 

“Oh, shut up Regulus! Can’t you be grateful for once in your life? I didn’t tell James or his mum and dad because they were _asleep_ and it was _my_ stupid, ungrateful, little brother who was after being an idiot and then had to beg me to rescue him immediately! Given the fact that it was half-fucking-eleven and I was in the middle of having a shit, _forgive me_ if I didn’t immediately stop to consider my actions and come up with a co-fucking-hesive bullet-pointed plan!”

 

“Besides,” said Sirius, voice softening slightly, “I left them a note, and we’ll probably be back before they even read it.”

 

“You left them a _note?_ Well, thank _Merlin_ and whoever the fuck else might be listening for that. You left a _note._ I suppose I can relax then. _Clearly,_ I was over-reacting- how foolish of me, to think that you would be so _thoughtless_ so as to not leave a motherfucking _note!”_

 

“Well, _I’m_ sorry but-”

 

“Not that it isn’t great fun listening to all this,” said Harry suddenly, “but I’d like to get out of here before I bleed out if it’s all the same to you, so could we please keep walking and stop arguing?”

 

Regulus- who had been pulled a bit further along despite his best efforts- stopped walking immediately, and swivelled around to face where he thought Harry was. “Why are you bleeding? What happened?”

 

“I knocked over a vase earlier, during today’s session of pointless questions. It was sharper than you’d think,” said Harry, sounding only vaguely worried about this turn of events. “It’s not that sore to be honest, and it wasn’t even bleeding that much when I came back downstairs. It’s just that it started bleeding _more_ at some point, and my T-shirt keeps sticking to it, which stings a bit, and it hasn’t stopped bleeding yet. I’ll be fine in a bit.”

 

“Fucking Gryffindors,” muttered Regulus, before stepping forward uncertainly and tugging on Sirius’ arm. “Hurry up, we have to go.”

 

“I _know_ that,” said Sirius, before he started to pull Regulus after him again.

 

They didn’t speak again for the next few minutes, bar the odd, ‘Mind your step, it’s too dark to see, but there’s a very loose tile somewhere around here’, and ‘Try not to step on the Stunned wizard, yeah? Don’t want him to wake up all of a sudden- he might be a bit annoyed’.

 

There was a carpet underfoot, then a hard-wood floor, and then they stopped suddenly.

 

There was a fiddly-sounding noise, a quiet creak, and then Sirius said far too cheerfully, “Out the window we go, then. You go first, Harry- I’ll help Reggie.”

 

“Don’t call me that,” muttered Regulus, as Harry apparently climbed out a window.

 

Sirius suddenly pushed him forward.

 

“Wait-wait, how high is this-”

 

“Leg up, Reg! Bit higher, now sit down, that’s it. Try not to scream, yeah? If there’s any more of them, they might hear you.”

 

And then Sirius shoved him, hard, and Regulus let out a rather undignified yelp as he fell off of the window-sill- _backwards,_ mind.

 

He landed on the soft ground surprisingly quickly. From somewhere behind him, he heard Harry- the traitor- snort.

 

“Piss off, Harry,” said Regulus.

 

There was a thump alarmingly close to his head, and then Sirius was nudging him in the side- probably with one of those ridiculous boots- and saying, “Get a move on, Reg. We haven’t got all night.”

 

Regulus got up, and Sirius started to pull him across the grass.

 

After a few seconds of this, Regulus risked opening his eyes again and discovered that it was rather dark outside.

 

He looked up.

 

The stars were out.

 

Regulus smiled.

 

“You can let go of me now- I’m fine,” he told Sirius, whom he could sort of see in the gloom of the country night. “What time is it?”

 

“Haven’t a clue,” said Sirius. “’bout two, probably.”

 

Regulus looked around himself, drinking in the first thing he had properly seen in what felt like years.

 

There was the inky-black sky, a smattering of stars and familiar constellations, a tree off over there, a short wall in front of them, and behind him was the open, illuminated, window of a long, low, house.

 

Harry, who had been very quiet for the last while, was also behind him, though Regulus couldn’t see much of him. He thought that he might have been slightly taller, though, which wasn’t surprising because Regulus seemed to have done a year’s worth of growing in the last few months.

 

“Oh, Harry,” said Regulus, suddenly remembering. “Your glasses- here, take them.”

 

Harry came closer- still wheezing in a slightly troubling way- and finally relieved Regulus of his terrifyingly fragile burden.

 

“Thanks. Oh, look. Stars.”

 

For the first time in a while- not counting the dust-fuelled, slightly hysterical, episode- Regulus smiled properly.

 

“Told you we’d get out of here.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, you dramatic sod. Though, y’know, you said that you’d do it if it was the last thing that _you_ ever did, and if anything it was a bit of a joint effort between me and Sirius.”

 

Harry sounded like he was smiling too.

 

Regulus narrowed his eyes at his shadowy form. “How on earth is it only a _joint_ effort? I contributed! In fact, seeing as Sirius got us out and he’s _my_ brother, that’s a second victory for _me,_ really.”

 

“Yes, but,” Harry countered, still breathing heavily. “ _I_ found our wands, and _I_ managed to cast a _wandless Patronus_ of all things, and _I_ contacted the outside world. This is more my work than yours- all y _ou_ did was say the message and spill slop on yourself.”

 

“It was _my_ idea, though,” argued Regulus, still grinning and feeling slightly giddy. Was it possible to get high off of night air? “And _I_ was the one who-”

 

“Whenever the two of you have finished,” interrupted Sirius, “you can climb over the wall and join me in the land of the free and clean. I’d recommend it- we’ve got real beds.”

 

Regulus rolled his eyes and clambered over the wall, Harry close behind him.

 

They stood on a narrow country road, bordered by low walls and sprawling hedgerows.

 

“Behold,” said Sirius, sounding unbearably smug, “your chariot.”

 

And there, next to Sirius and illuminated however faintly by the distant stars and the almost-full moon which was starting to drift out from behind cloud cover, was a very large, very _Muggle-_

 

“Is that a motorbike?”, asked Harry.

 

“ _Yes,”_ said Sirius, sounding absolutely delighted.

 

“Where the fuck did you get that monstrosity?”, asked Regulus, eyeing it as well as he could in the dim of night. It didn’t look like it could fit three passengers.

 

“James’ dad found it last week, on one of his walks. Middle of nowhere, no owner around, keys and that smelly stuff the Muggles use in their cars and things still all in it. Brought it home with him- me and James have been messing around on it for a while now. Great fun- like a very low, loud, broom.”

 

“Does it fly?”, asked Harry, distantly.

 

“ _No,”_ said Sirius slowly, “but it _should,_ and it _will_ now that you’ve mentioned it. I’ll see if Professor O’Halloran will let me do _that_ instead of my O.W.L.s for Muggle Studies.”

 

“ _Oh, no,”_ muttered Regulus to himself.

 

“Right,” said Sirius, sounding business-like all of a sudden. “Let’s see how we’re fixed, then. Lumos!”

 

The sudden ball of light temporarily blinded Regulus, who hadn’t been expecting it and was now thoroughly sick of being blinded by anything.

 

He turned his head away from the light, trying to blink the dark spots out of his vision.

 

Harry let out a rather strange noise, and Sirius said, alarmed, “Jesus _Christ,_ that’s a lot of blood.”

 

“Swearing like a Muggle doesn’t make you cool, Sirius,” said Regulus automatically, conveniently ignoring how often he himself was guilty of the same thing.

 

He paused. “ _Is_ it a lot of blood?”

 

“Yes,” said Sirius, at the same time that Harry said, “No.”

 

“Right,” said Sirius decisively. “I’m at the front, obviously, what with being the pilot or whatever it’s called, and then Harry sits in the middle and Reg can go at the back, in case the person who _isn’t_ bleeding a lot faints from blood loss.”

 

“Alright,” said Regulus, and his vision cleared just enough that he realised that he wasn’t facing a mere hedge, as he had thought.

 

His brain registered _person, shining glasses, darkness,_ before Sirius cast Nox and the person who must have been Harry faded back into obscurity as the world darkened again.

 

Sirius got onto the motorbike. “Right,” he said brightly. “Let’s go- who here can read maps? I think I’ve got one somewhere around here.”

 

“Why would we need to do that?”, asked Regulus, perplexed. “Are we _really_ that far from anything?”

 

“I don’t know,” admitted Sirius, fiddling with something or other on the bike. “I was in a bit of a hurry, you see, and there was the matter of my just having to follow the huge, glowing Patronus, which possibly broke the Statute of Secrecy.”

 

Harry, who was awkwardly climbing onto the bike whilst trying to maintain an appropriate distance from Sirius, said, “I can cast another one, to find someone wherever we’re going. Where _are_ we going?”

 

“My mate James’ place- somewhere in the west, out the country. Can you find it again?”

 

“No,” said Harry, sounding rather tired all of a sudden. “But I can find _him,_ so it’s the same thing, really.”

 

“Great,” said Sirius. “Come on, Reg- let’s go!”

 

Regulus sighed, and very carefully sat astride the motorbike, which may or may not have been magically stretched in some way for it to fit the three of them.

 

“Push up a bit, Harry,” he said, before saying to Sirius, “Shouldn’t we have helmets? All those Muggles in your posters had helmets, even though they weren’t wearing them. Seems a tad unsafe, otherwise.”

 

Sirius scoffed. “ _Helmets._ I suppose you’ll be wanting a safety harness next. A Beater’s bat, in case one of the cars gets a bit too close, maybe? You’ll be fine, as long as you hold on tight and don’t do anything stupid like lean too far over the side.”

 

“Hold on to what, exactly? It’s not a broom, Sirius.”

 

Sirius made a sound which was the verbal equivalent of rolling one’s eyes. “Each other and me, obviously. I’d recommend the waist, though if you’re going to be funny about it just go for the shoulders, you coward. Though maybe,” he added thoughtfully, “you should both just hold on to me, in case _someone_ faints.”

 

“ _Someone_ isn’t going to faint,” said Harry, sounding irritated. “ _Someone_ also has ears and is sitting right behind you, incidentally. _Expecto Patronum!”_

 

A silvery shape shot into the air, and solidified in the form of an enormous stag on the road before them.

 

“Bloody hell,” said Sirius. Regulus felt similarly. “You did that easily enough, didn’t you? How old are you?”

 

“I dunno, fourteen or fifteen. _Anyway,_ ” Harry seemed to turn his attention to the stag. “Find Sirius’ friend James, lead us there- wait for us and don’t go too quickly.”

 

The stag inclined its head, and turned around, starting to trot down the road. It stopped after a few feet, when they made no move to follow.

 

“Right then,” said Sirius, sounding delighted. “Let’s go, and keep the screaming to a minimum if you will, Reg.”

 

The engine roared into life, and a yellow headlight blinked on for a moment before guttering out again. Whatever Sirius said in response was lost in the rumbling of the motorbike.

 

Regulus hesitantly gripped Harry’s shoulder with his right hand, and Sirius’ with his left.

 

And then the bike lurched forward, speeding down the road towards the stag, which began to canter off into the dark unknown.

 

Regulus let out a very undignified sound, as Sirius all but cackled with glee. Harry stayed silent and may have suddenly fallen asleep from how slow and steady his breathing had gotten.

 

(Regulus knew this, as well as the fact that Harry was worryingly thin and bony and smelled of sweat and dust, because the bike’s sudden forward motion and knocked him into his former cellmate and sitting up seemed like a very quick way to fall off and die.)

 

Regulus surreptitiously tightened his grip on his two companions.

 

And then Regulus Arcturus Black- free at last- was left trying to fight off sleep as they sped across the countryside by starlight, led by a glowing deer and the light of the nearly-full moon.

 

(He lost that fight very quickly.)

 


	10. Blood Loss and Sudden Realisations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! 
> 
> First of all, we cleared 1000 hits last night, which is absolutely brilliant, so thank you all for that. 
> 
> Secondly, once again the biggest of thank you's to everyone who's left a comment or a kudo or bookmarked this or just read along. You're fantastic, and don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. 
> 
> Thirdly, this chapter was not always this short compared to the rest. Honest. It's just that all of the others seemed to get much longer in the final draft and I cut a huge chunk out of this at the last minute, and I'll be honest, it's a bit weak. Not very plotty, and definitely not the most interesting way to cover the 'sudden realisations' mentioned in the title. 
> 
> And lastly, updates might become more of a weekly thing from Sunday onwards for the next while- I'm still not quite yet finished, the last few chapters are being very awkward, and school starts again on Tuesday.
> 
> So to make up for the third and fourth thing I said, you're going to get chapter eleven today as well, chapter twelve on Sunday, and after that one chapter every Sunday unless I get some unexpected free time in which case an update might be a more random time- like half-four on a Thursday. Regardless of how it works out, this fic should be posted in its entirety before November. The next installment (be it sequel or side-fic) will...not be as quick. I think I said something about having it readable by November but the way things are now, that's just not going to happen. I'm not abandoning this, I promise, it just might be a while before I post anything after the final chapter of this fic. I'll try my best to have something for you as soon as possible- I promise!
> 
> Anyway, enough of the gloomy rl stuff- beware, here be surprisingly quick deductions, Not Panicking, and a second chapter featuring the Flying Motorbike Which Doesn't Fly Yet But Most Definitely Will.

**21st July 1975**

A lot of things occurred to Harry Potter as he awkwardly sat on the back of a motorcycle for the first time in his life.

 

Surprisingly many things, to be honest, given the fact that at this point Harry was running on mostly adrenaline and stubbornness and, as such, could be forgiven for not being especially quick on the uptake.

 

The first thing which Harry realised was a very big thing- the thing from which all the other realisations came- a world-crashingly, mind-bogglingly, _terrifyingly_ big thing.

 

It occurred to Harry, in the blink of an eye that it took Regulus to get onto the bike as well, that Regulus’ older brother- Regulus’ oddly familiar, Gryffindor, motorbike-riding, strikingly good-looking, older brother- was apparently none other than Sirius Black.

 

_Sweet God._

 

Given the fact that Sirius Black should have been Harry’s thirty-something year old godfather, an escaped convict, and capable of recognising Harry immediately, but was instead a confident, light-hearted, teenager who hadn’t the foggiest idea who Harry was, this was indeed a world-crashingly big discovery.

 

Harry wasn’t entirely sure if he _wanted_ to accept this discovery- things were just _that_ bit easier when he pretended that the world itself hadn’t suddenly become very, very, wrong.

 

“Push up a bit, Harry,” said Regulus, before he went right back to bickering with Sirius about who knew what. _Something about helmets?_

 

Harry obligingly pushed up a bit, whilst trying to maintain an appropriate distance from the virtual stranger who was probably-possibly-sort-of-but-not-really his godfather, as they were both teenage boys who were not related and therefore had very definite ideas of the amount of physical contact which was allowed. (Very little, usually.)

 

_This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, please, please, don’t be real, please-_

 

The second, incredible, kind of horrifying, thing which Harry realised in that instant was that because he was stiffly sitting up right and leaning away from the back of Sirius Black the teenager, then he must have somehow managed to travel a very significant distance into the past.

 

(Or else there just so happened to be another Sirius Black at Hogwarts whom Harry had somehow never noticed once in the last four years.)

 

(Or else maybe Harry had finally, _finally,_ cracked and none of this was really happening at all.)

 

(The first idea seemed the most likely, and was the most worrying to consider, though the third one did hold some merit.)

 

Harry tuned back into the conversation in time to hear Sirius say, “Though maybe you should both just hold on to me, in case _someone_ faints.”

 

It was very clear who _someone_ was.

 

“ _Someone_ isn’t going to faint,” snapped Harry, only feeling slightly guilty for snapping at his sort-of-but-not-really godfather. (And happily ignoring the way his head was starting to feel _just a little bit_ woozy.) “ _Someone_ also has ears and is sitting right behind you, incidentally.”

 

Harry took a very brief moment to pull a happy memory to the forefront of his mind- how wonderful it had felt to win the Quidditch Cup in Third Year, during Oliver Wood’s last year as captain.

 

Wood had cried.

 

So had McGonagall.

 

At the time, the euphoria had been enough to bring a smile to Harry’s face for a full week afterwards.

 

It still made him grin now.

 

“ _Expecto Patronum!”_

 

Prongs materialised onto the narrow road in front of them.

 

Harry’s heart twinged oddly at the sight of the stag.

 

“Bloody hell,” said Sirius, sounding impressed. “You did that easily enough, didn’t you? How old are you?”

 

“I dunno, fourteen or fifteen. _Anyway,_ ” Harry spoke to the stag. “Find Sirius’ friend James, lead us there- wait for us and don’t go too quickly.”

 

Harry had another sudden realisation then- one which made his chest feel strange, and filled his stomach with butterflies.

 

 _If_ Harry was in the past- which was a rather big if, to be fair, and there was still time to panic and refuse to accept the idea- then Sirius’ friend James was almost definitely Harry’s _father_ James- they were going to meet Harry’s father who could only be about fifteen or so, and then they were probably going to see Harry’s grandparents, and, and, and-

 

The engine roared into life, and a yellow headlight blinked on for a moment before guttering out again. Whatever Sirius said in response was lost in the rumbling of the motorbike.

 

Regulus’ hand loosely gripped Harry’s right shoulder, and Harry took that as his cue to hesitantly grab onto Sirius’ shoulder and a handful of his shirt by his waist- just to be safe.

 

And then the bike lurched forward, and Regulus was knocked forward into Harry, who was knocked into Sirius and was far too tired to really muster up more than a vague sense of discomfort, and a quiet wondering as to whether or not this was alright.

 

Regulus made a funny sort of squawk-yelp, and Sirius let out a delighted, cackly, laugh.

 

Harry stayed silent, wind tugging at his hair and his face currently pressed into Sirius’ back.

 

(He worried for a minute that his Invisibility Cloak, which he had found in the drawer with the wands and taken back alongside a rather odd-looking necklace, would fall out of his pocket.)

 

Almost of their own accord, Harry’s eyes slipped shut.

 

The fourth dreadful thing to occur to Harry- still working under the assumption that he wasn’t stark raving mad- was that those _fuckers_ whose cellar he’d been living in for the last who knew how long had either been the ones to yank him from the present into this twisted, unfamiliar, world, or else they had suspected- maybe even _realised-_ that he was from the future, and _that_ had been the point of all those stupid questions he hadn’t really answered.

 

_This is terrible and awful and it can’t be real please don’t be real please I hate it I hate it I hate-_

 

Regulus’ hand squeezed his shoulder a bit more tightly then, reminding Harry of the next huge thing which had occurred to him; that Sirius had a younger brother.

 

A younger brother he had never mentioned- who _no one_ had ever mentioned- which meant that either he and Sirius had had a major falling-out, or else that Regulus was long dead. (Or else that none of this was really happening at all, and to be perfectly honest the way that his head was starting to swim made that option seem more and more inviting by the minute.)

 

(The possibility of Regulus being dead was a rather unpleasant one to consider, because Regulus was surprisingly decent when he wasn’t being a bigot and sneering at people. But Harry didn’t like bigots, so was it wrong to not hate Regulus? _Should_ he hate him?)

 

But if Regulus- who had freely admitted to not being a Gryffindor, though had carefully not clarified what House he _was_ in, and who had already expressed Malfoy-levels of prejudice and arsehole-ishness- if _that_ Regulus was a Black and Harry was correctly remembering what Sirius had said about being the black sheep of the family, as well as the sorts of rumours about the Blacks which had swirled up back in Third Year, and Sirius was a teenager which meant that Voldemort was still at large, then wasn’t it very possible- _likely,_ even- that the boy who had made him laugh, who had encouraged him, who had looked after his bloody glasses for him- _like a friend would-_ wasn’t it very possible that he was going to become a-

 

Harry firmly shut the door on that thought, leaving it for later.

 

Hopefully much later.

 

_Not happening, not happening, it’s not happening- but of_ course _it is, why wouldn’t it be and now you don’t know any of these people and it’s all wrong and how are you going to fix this one, Harry, how are you going to fix this one,_ ** how are you going to fix- **

 

 _T_ _hat’s enough of all that,_ decided Harry, before pushing all of these realisations- alongside any thoughts of the aching, hot and sticky mess that was his right side- firmly out of mind.

 

And Harry really was incredibly tired all of a sudden, and the bike had a very comforting steady rhythm to it, and it really was remarkably easy to just not worry about anything in particular right now.

 

Harry fell asleep somewhere in between sleepily wondering why Sirius had never mentioned this little escapade to him before- because Harry knew perfectly well that time was a sort of loop-thing- and considering the fact that it might very well be _his_ fault that there was ever a flying motorcycle. (And was that really such a bad thing?)

 

 

Harry woke up very briefly at a time when Regulus was squishing him and breathing softly by his ear- _the prick-_ and the bike’s engine had fallen silent.

 

Sirius was sitting perfectly still.

 

And then Harry remembered something very important.

 

“Sir’us,” said Harry, mouth not working very well seeing as his tongue was thick with sleep and his face had been pressed into his maybe-possibly-hopefully not-sort-of-godfather’s back for the last who knew how long.

 

Sirius stiffened.

 

“Harry? Are you awake?”, he whispered, not turning around.

 

“Mhm,” said Harry. “You’ve t’be careful. The dust- Reg’lus said ‘s magic, ‘n it makes you go kinda funny sometimes. Jus’ be careful. Don’ breathe it in.”

 

“What dust?”

 

Harry, who was already nearly asleep again, could manage nothing more than an insistent, “ _The_ dust, Sir’us. Careful- Reg’lus said s’magic.”

 

“What does it do?”, asked Sirius, and Harry meant to answer him, to try and explain the fits of giggles, and the sneezing, and the sleeping, and the burning anger, and all of it, but somewhere in between him hearing the question, and him putting together some sort of answer in his head, Harry fell asleep again.

 

It would be quite some time before he woke up again.

 

Strange, blood loss doing that.

 

Very strange indeed.

 


	11. Goodbye Kansas: Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And chapter eleven on the same day, as promised. Oh, look, a double-bill of Harry. Whoops.   
> Also the end of Goodbye Kansas, which began life as Pray For Him (Harry, Why?)
> 
> Beware, here be violence, dark themes- like that's anything new- and another chapter set long before the last one you read.
> 
> (Oh, also, older readers may note that there is a fancy library in this chapter, not a fancy sitting room like chapter one said. I have since revised that line in chapter one, though nothing else has changed so you don't have to go back and read it again if you don't want to. Just a quick heads up.)

**6th July 1975**

Harry didn’t know how long he had been a prisoner for. It couldn’t have been too long- not long enough for him to fall asleep, and only long enough for one bowl of some horrible stew-porridge-thing to appear through mysterious means and disappear through them too.

 

(He had eaten it only grudgingly and feeling annoyed with his traitorous stomach all the while.)

 

However long it had been, Harry decided that he rather hated it, and a fresh burst of sympathy for Sirius welled up in his chest. Imagine _this_ for the next twelve years _and_ Dementors lurking about the place. Harry didn’t think he could take it.

 

There was no way to track time in the cell.

 

Harry didn’t like that either.

 

He stayed sitting where he had woken up, staring blankly at the door. Stretching out as far as he could still left it sickening inches from his fingertips. Harry would have preferred if he hadn’t been able to see the door at all.

 

The girl had stopped screaming a while ago. Somehow the silence was even more unsettling.

 

To be perfectly honest, Harry Potter was terrified.

 

Easily as afraid as he’d been in the Chamber of Secrets two years ago.

 

Easily as afraid as he’d been facing someone who he’d thought to be an unhinged mass-murderer in Third Year.

 

(Easily as afraid as he’d been that horrible, horrible, night in the graveyard.)

 

Except this time, Harry didn’t have the adrenaline rush of immediate danger or even the burn of quiet anger to distract him from that.

 

And this time, there wasn’t a Phoenix and a sword.

 

Or a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher to reveal that the whole thing was a conspiracy.

 

(Or the ghosts of Voldemort’s victims- his own parents cheering him on.)

 

Harry was on his own, and Ron and Hermione didn’t seem to be coming to help him out any time soon.

 

He was trying very hard not to think about just how very afraid he was because that made his chest feel tight, like his lungs were too small, or how useless he felt because that reminded him of the last time he’d been at someone else’s mercy like this and Harry had decided rather early on that such thoughts were to be consciously avoided at all costs.

 

Quite luckily for both Harry’s lungs and his rapidly failing ability to keep calm, a distraction came then in the form of the door at the end of the well suddenly scraping open.

 

Harry tensed up against the wall, curled his hands into fists, and wished very desperately for his wand.

 

Wishing did nothing, however, and his wand did not miraculously appear.

 

Two people entered the cell, and stood close enough that Harry could probably reach them despite his tether.

 

They stood side by side and blocked the door.

 

Harry stared at them.

 

They (presumably) stared at Harry.

 

They were both fairly tall, though one was noticeably broader than the other, and dressed in long dark robes. They also didn’t seem to have any faces.

 

Where the visitors to the cell’s faces should have been was a glaringly bright light which dazzled Harry’s eyes, like sunlight reflecting off of a shard of glass. It completely obscured their features.

 

The strangers had yet to say anything.

 

Harry narrowed his eyes at them.

 

Fuelled by a sudden rush of anger at the _nerve_ of these people for _kidnapping_ him (and the knowledge that at this point he was either going to rage or cower), Harry suddenly asked, “Who are you?”

 

The strangers said nothing, didn’t give any indication that they had even heard him.

 

“Where am I?”

 

Still nothing.

 

“Why am I here?”

 

Nope.

 

“What’s going on?”

 

“Shut up, and come here,” said the slighter of the two, who had a surprisingly deep voice. “You’re wanted upstairs.”

 

“What’s upstairs?”

 

“You’ll see. Now come here.”

 

Harry eyed the pair dubiously.

 

His pride and stubborn streak didn’t want him to obey- didn’t want to make anything easy for these people- though the slightly more pragmatic part of Harry had finally roused from its slumber and pointed out that they could probably make him do whatever they wanted so it would probably be best to do it himself and pretend that he still had some semblance of dignity left.

 

Harry scowled and hauled himself to his feet, taking him time crossing the cell.

 

He made sure to stop just out of arm’s reach, glaring at them both as best he could despite the painful light.

 

_I could probably run past if I wasn’t chained up- do they have the key? I could let them unlock the shackle, dodge that way then_ actually  _go the other way, under that one’s arm, and then-_

 

His two escorts seemed to exchange a look, and then the bigger of the two moved forward with a surprising amount of speed and held Harry’s arms behind his back- too tightly for him to wriggle away. It seemed oddly familiar.

 

The other wizard- Harry decided to presume that they were both magical- pulled out his wand and waved it at Harry, mumbling something to himself.

 

The manacle around Harry’s ankle dropped to the ground with a dull clank.

 

The wizard currently restraining Harry tightened his grip slightly.

 

Harry tried not to wince.

 

And then Harry was pushed through the door, trying not to trip over his own feet all the while.

 

His cell was at one end of a very long grey corridor. There was a staircase at the other end. The walls were lined with doors, some of which had big, barred, windows.

 

The door to Harry’s cell was shut with a quiet whump of expelled air, and then Harry was being forced onwards again.

 

He twisted his head about, trying to find something- _anything-_ which could give him even the slightest of advantages.

 

He looked through the bars of the door to his immediate right, and made unexpected eye-contact with a girl.

 

She looked very young, only about old enough to just be starting at Hogwarts, and there was a strange patch of yellow paste on one of her cheeks. It contrasted starkly against her dark skin.

 

What stuck with Harry though, in that long moment before he was urged past, were her eyes.

 

The little girl who should have been babbling excitedly about First Year and school supplies had big brown eyes.

 

And they were currently filled with tears.

 

She sniffled wetly and stared at him with those too-shiny eyes.

 

Something in the vicinity of Harry’s chest ached.

 

And then she was gone.

 

Harry was pushed along at a slightly faster clip than before.

 

The cell- and they _were_ cells, like his one- now on Harry’s left was also occupied. A tanned girl in her mid-teens glared out hatefully as they passed. There was a dancing current of electric blue arcing across her skin, frizzing up her hair and crackling loudly.

 

She bared her teeth at Harry, when he caught her eye. It was hard to tell if it was supposed to be a grimace or an attempt at a smile.

 

And then she was gone, too.

 

A little further on, also on the left, was an old man. Unlike the girls, he stood right up against his door, gripping the bars with his hands. His hands, Harry noticed with a start, had small daisies growing on the backs of them, amidst the usual grey hairs.

 

He offered Harry a toothless smile as he went by. His eyes were warm, but sad.

 

Harry tried to smile back.

 

And then he was gone.

 

The last cell, on the right, was also occupied. The bars glittered under the source-less light- they were covered in a thin sheen of ice.

 

There was a woman inside the cell, middle-aged and of Eastern descent. There was something rather kindly about her, something which reminded Harry all of a sudden of Molly Weasley.

 

The woman looked very, very, tired.

 

And then she was gone, too.

 

The last few doors were completely ordinary-looking. Harry wondered it they housed windowless cells like his.

 

Harry eyed the stairs. They didn’t look too steep, and there was an open door at the top. Harry could see the top of a pale green wall through it.

 

_Fuck it,_ thought Harry, and right as they reached the stairs, he jerked himself forward, knocking his captor slightly off-balance.

 

Then he kicked him as hard as he could in the back of the knee, and rammed the back of his head against his chin, which hurt rather a lot.

 

The man let out an involuntary sound, and Harry ripped himself free.

 

He sprinted up the stairs, heart in his mouth, and slammed the door shut behind him.

 

There was (very conveniently) a key already in the lock.

 

Harry locked it and kept the key firmly in his hand. He could probably do a bit of damage with it, right? Right?

 

Harry was in a long corridor, pale green walls and dark tiles on the floor. It ended in a dead end to his right, which made it feel rather claustrophobic.

 

Harry turned left and took off down the corridor.

 

He had nearly reached the open door at the end of it- ignoring the few closed ones he had passed along the way- when the ground beneath his right foot seemed to slip and spin.

 

Harry staggered forward and crashed down onto his knees.

 

He winced, and chanced a glance back at what had tripped him, as he pulled himself upright again.

 

A loose tile.

 

Fuck’s sake.

 

And then Harry heard a distant bang as the door he had locked burst open, and he took off running again.

 

He found himself standing in another hallway- pleasant, carpeted. Lots of wooden doors. Seemed like the sort of place someone like Malfoy would live.

 

Harry didn’t care.

 

He hesitated for what was likely only a second or so but felt like half an eternity, and then charged through the door opposite him.

 

Straight into a library.

 

An occupied library.

 

There were two people already in the room- outfitted just as his guards had been. They jumped to their feet at the sight of him.

 

Harry spun on his heel and scrambled back out into the hall, starting to feel slightly sick with panic.

 

He tried the door now on his left.

 

It was locked.

 

Harry rammed his shoulder into it, breath starting to come in desperate little gasps.

 

And then a hand closed down on his shoulder and he was yanked roughly away.

 

Harry squirmed and thrashed, trying desperately to kick something or catch someone with the edge of the key which was starting to cut into his sweaty palm, or maybe even head-butt someone- it didn’t matter what, he didn’t care just something, _anything-_

 

And then Harry’s cheek was suddenly being smushed into the hard panel of the door, and something was squeezing his wrist so hard that he _had_ to let the key drop to the floor with a dull thump, and there was something pressing in between his shoulder blades and pinning him in place.

 

“Stop moving,” grunted a man, and then someone was squeezing the back of his neck far too hard.

 

Harry stopped moving, heart hammering and breathing hard.

 

He felt incredibly disappointed in himself.

 

Harry’s hands were brought behind his back, and someone slapped him harshly across the back of the head.

 

It stung.

 

Sparks danced behind his (ever-so-slightly blurry) vision.

 

“Don’t try and run again,” said possibly the same man as before, still sounding incredibly annoyed.

 

Harry decided to try and run again as soon as he could.

 

Something tight was put around both of his wrists and then he was turned around and dragged into the library.

 

No amount of wiggling or heel-dragging could help him.

 

His captors seemed to have learned their lesson from the last time and two of them held him by the arms, staying carefully out of reach at his sides.

 

This, combined, with the quick pace which had him nearly stumbling over himself, ensured that he couldn’t easily kick anyone.

 

Damn.

 

The library was big, the walls packed with bookshelves and stacks of precariously-leaning books. There was an unlit fireplace set in one wall, a big window in the other.

 

Harry caught a glimpse of the bright blue sky and an expanse of grass before he was forced to his knees by the fireplace.

 

Rather considerately, he was now kneeling on a rather fancy woven rug. Aunt Petunia would have wanted one- all cream and navy and a slightly dizzying pattern and a little fringe-thing around the edges. Lovely.

 

His arms were abruptly let go, though then something hard started poking at the back of his neck- a wand, Harry supposed.

 

The door was closed. The broader of Harry’s original escorts set up guard beside it.

 

The smallest of his four captors made his (her?) way over to him, steps measured and precise.

 

They made a show of Conjuring a chair and sitting down, apparently still looking at him.

 

Harry squinted his eyes at them and decided that this one was probably a witch.

 

He was proven right when she said, coolly, “What’s your name?”

 

A wave of d é j à vu washed over Harry then.  He wasn’t entirely sure why.

 

He kept his mouth shut and looked away, pretending to be fascinated by the small table beside the witch. It had an extraordinarily ugly vase on it.

 

“What is your name?”, she asked again, still sounding rather clinical.

 

Harry didn’t even bother looking at her this time, anger and fear roiling around in his stomach.

 

He decided to focus on the anger.

 

The wand was jabbed harshly into his neck, and the wizard holding the wand leaned down to growl in Harry’s ear, “I have no issue with hexing your balls off, boy. Answer the bloody question.”

 

Harry swallowed, and fixed his gaze on the table leg.

 

“Neville,” he said grudgingly.

 

He felt a brief pang of guilt for using his classmate’s name, as well as a small rush of nostalgia, remembering the last time he had pretended to be Neville Longbottom. What he wouldn’t give for his biggest problem to be that whole thing with Aunt Marge again. At least the Dursleys had never locked him up or treated him like a pris-oh, wait.

 

The witch on the chair turned her head and apparently looked at the wizard by the door.

 

He crossed the room. Harry watched him nervously. The man was quite a bit more solidly-built than he was, could probably throw him through the window with relative ease.

 

He disappeared out of Harry’s line of sight, somewhere on his left.

 

Something dark moved in the corner of his vision- something on the right.

 

And then a pair of hands grabbed his face and Harry was momentarily staring straight at the blinding light of whatever spell they were all using on their faces. He shut his eyes thankfully.

 

He had forgotten that there had been a fourth one.

 

“Well?”, asked the witch.

 

“He’s lying,” said the wizard who was still holding Harry’s face.

 

Harry was slapped across the head again.

 

He exhaled suddenly- probably in the wizard’s face which served him right that _wankstain_ \- and blinked back surprised tears at the stinging, prickling, sensation.

 

“What’s his name?”, asked the wizard with the wand, who had probably been the one to slap him.

 

“I don’t know,” said the other wizard smoothly. “That isn’t how it works- I’m not a mind-reader or a true Legillimens.”

 

And then Harry’s face was (thankfully) dropped, and the witch asked again, not sounding at all ruffled by any of this, “What’s your name?”

 

The wand poked him meaningfully.

 

“Harry,” said Harry quietly, now staring fixedly at the floor.

 

“Harry what?”

 

Harry shook his head. He didn’t look at her.

 

The wand dug into his neck again.

 

Harry still shook his head.

 

“You had questions earlier, I’m told,” the witch said suddenly, voice no longer quite as distantly professional. “An exchange of information, then. I will answer one of your questions if you answer one of mine.”

 

Harry bit his lip.

 

He wanted to ask who they were, where he was, what they wanted with him, but his mind wandered back down the stairs to a scared little girl and an angry teenager and a kind, sad, old man, and a woman who looked as if she might be _this_ close to throwing in the towel.

 

His heart ached.

 

He still couldn’t get tearful brown eyes out of his head.

 

“The other people down there- why are they here?”

 

There was a pause, in which the woman clasped her hands together and settled them down on her lap. Another very slow, deliberate, gesture.

 

“They are here because they all suffer from some sort of magical anomaly, deformity, or curse. And that makes them interesting,” she said, simply.

 

Another pause.

 

Harry’s knees were starting to hurt from where he’d fallen earlier.

 

“The older girl is constantly covered by her own wild magic, the old man has plants growing out of him, the woman is forty and officially a Squib who never received a Hogwarts letter- yet she has recently started to suffer from bouts of accidental magic, and the youngest girl- despite a lack of any sort of injury- is incapable of speaking. She can only scream.”

 

Harry blinked.

 

_Then why am I here?_

 

“Now,” said the witch, “where have you come from?”

 

She said it as if there was _more_ to the question, as if it was an in-joke she expected Harry to get.

 

Harry did not get it.

 

“Surrey,” said Harry. “Why am I here?”

 

The witch didn’t answer him. Neither did any of the wizards.

 

The witch looked at something behind Harry, perhaps the tall wizard who apparently wasn’t a mind-reader or a Leg-thingy, but who could tell when he was lying.

 

“All magicked out, I’m afraid,” said the wizard.

 

The witch nodded.

 

“Why am I here?”, asked Harry again.

 

The witch still didn’t answer.

 

Instead, she asked, as if she hadn’t heard him, “How old are you?”

 

Harry didn’t say anything for a moment.

 

“Where are we?”

 

Nobody answered him this time either.

 

“Have you ever been to the Ministry of Magic?”, asked the witch.

 

Harry frowned at her. Or, rather, at her knees.

 

“No. I don’t even know where it is.”

 

The witch turned and seemed to look at one of her colleagues behind Harry.

 

Harry tried to turn around to see, though stopped when the wand started pressing against the bottom of his skull with a great deal of insistence.

 

The witch sighed, quietly.

 

“Who are your parents? Are they both magical?”

 

Harry went back to studying the table beside the witch, and ignoring the steady poking which had started up against his neck.

 

_He’s not_ really  _going to hex me. Probably._

 

“How did you get that scar?”

 

Harry wondered if it would be beneficial to have a sudden fit of accidental magic- it could only make things better, right?

 

“Do you have any particular magical talents? Any flair for a particular branch of magic?”

 

Harry thought about mentioning Parseltongue, just to see how they’d react. Would they be afraid? God, he hoped so- he was starting to get very sick of these cold, oddly-scientific, possibly-but-probably-not-Death Eaters, who didn’t seem to have any idea who he was.

 

His thoughts drifted back to the other people downstairs. Something angry twisted inside him. The anger, combined with perhaps a touch of foolish, defiant, teenage pride, over-powered any sort of regard for his own safety which he might have felt at that moment.

 

Harry looked up, and fixed his gaze slightly to the left of the witch’s bright blur of a face.

 

“Yeah,” said Harry. “This.”

 

And then he very deliberately spat on the lovely, fancy, rug.

 

He only had time to feel rather pleased with himself before someone slapped him across the head again.

 

Then the world went dark.

 

 

When Harry opened his eyes again, he was back in the cell, flat on his back and his head threatening to burst with the sheer force of his current headache.

 

Harry sat up, wincing.

 

Then he frowned, confused.

 

The cell was now covered in a thin layer of coarse-looking grey and black dust. Something about it- the texture, probably- brought to mind coal dust.

 

Some of it had already settled onto his jeans and the sleeves of his jacket.

 

Harry wiped at it and only succeeded in spreading it more and getting some on his hand.

 

_Bugger,_ thought Harry, before his headache spiked and he had to close his eyes for a bit.

 

_Bugger._

 


	12. Going (Nowhere Fast): Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Hope you're well. You know, every time I log on and see how many more people have read this, or commented, or left a kudo, or bookmarked it, or subscribed (you get the idea) my heart does this ridiculous little victory dance in my ribcage and I grin at my laptop screen like it can smile back. So, you know, thank you for that. Seriously- you're fantastic.
> 
> Anyway, here's the last of Going (Nowhere Fast), and the last of the jumping backwards in time.
> 
> Featuring a bit of investigating, the author not being very kind to all those people who want answers, damn it, and Regulus' morality.

**14th July 1975**

Diagon Alley was busy, at five to twelve on a bright Monday in July.

 

Great throngs of people were packed onto the street, queuing up, pushing past, ducking in and out of shops. They were colourful, they were loud, and they were completely absorbed in themselves and their own stories, as most people are.

 

Regulus watched them for another moment or two, from the gloomy corner between Gringotts and the entrance to Knockturn Alley. There was something rather lovely about the cheerful chaos of Diagon Alley, for all that his parents would probably have turned their noses up at it. He couldn’t quite bring himself to do the same.

 

Regulus turned away from the sunlit street and regarded the only other magical shopping district in London. He swallowed.

 

Father’s parting words rang in his ears, _‘Be back no later than four- you know how your mother worries.’_

 

_Pull yourself together, Regulus Black._

 

Regulus pulled up his hood, slipped his hand into his pocket in an attempt to reassure himself that his wand was still there, and then strode into Knockturn Alley without a backwards glance.

 

_Keep your head high and your face blank. Don’t make eye-contact._

 

Knockturn Alley was quiet, in every sense of the word. Especially after the warm hustle and bustle behind him. There was hardly a soul to be seen, and those that there were either stuck close together in intimidating groups, or stood alone and aloof on the grimy cobblestones.

 

There seemed to be a cloud over the street- all of the golden sunshine of moments before had vanished, and there was a noticeable chill in the air. It also smelled, rather strongly in places, of slightly rotten potions ingredients and what just might have been excrement.

 

Regulus’ footsteps echoed loudly.

 

He didn’t like it. He tried not to let it show.

 

Regulus determinedly strode past a trio of hooded figures, all speaking in quiet murmurs, hurriedly looked away from the scantily-clad witch who batted her eyelashes at him, and ignored the bellow of ‘Oi, sweetheart!’, from somewhere behind him.

 

_Just keep walking. You’re a Black- they won’t touch you. Just keep walking._

 

Knockturn was much narrower than Diagon, narrow enough in places that there was barely enough room for two people to pass each other between the small, dingy, shopfronts.

 

Regulus came upon one such place as two hags stumbled up to it, arm in arm and whispering excitedly. He stepped in slightly and fixedly examined a set of shrunken heads- trolls, were they?- in a slightly grubby window display.

 

The thing with Knockturn Alley was that the shops’ window displays were always infinitely more interesting (and disturbing, and possibly less useful) than those of their Diagon counter-parts.

 

He caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the streaky glass- his face seemed to be floating in the dark. His eyes were black holes and his features blurred and indistinct. Surprisingly, the bruise which had bloomed into being on his temple over-night was perfectly clear.

 

It rather seemed to suit his current surroundings, Regulus thought, more unnerved than he would have liked to admit. Though now that he thought about it, it seemed rather odd that Father- who had always been image-conscious and media-savvy, if nothing else- hadn’t said a word about the mark over their quiet breakfast that morning. Mother had been conspicuously absent.

 

(He remembered Sirius, just two days earlier, and thought that they rather matched now.)

 

Regulus turned away, the path now clear again, and clutched his wand tightly.

 

And then he was coming up to Borgin and Burke’s, which looked much the same as it had the first (and last) time he had been there- last summer, when Father had had to dispose of some objects in a hurry after some very unfair legislation had been about to pass. It was probably just as dimly-lit and dusty as it had been last time.

 

Regulus’ eye was briefly caught by a polished writing desk- _Circa 1897, now just 250 Galleons-_ and a string of sparkling opals in the window, before he pushed on. He couldn’t help but flinch slightly when the drunk who had been leaning against the opposite wall lurched to his feet and wobbled past him.

 

The man sneered at him, before entering Borgin and Burke’s.

 

Regulus sneered back, now alone on this stretch of the street.

 

Just as Sirius had said in his letter- which Regulus had half-heartedly incinerated that morning- the building three doors down from Borgin and Burke’s was, according to the discreet, tarnished, bronze plaque, number 16 Knockturn Alley.

 

There wasn’t a shop window, or any sort of sign to signify what the building was supposed to be. The only thing of note was the small red triangle painted onto the dusty black door.

 

Regulus swallowed, throat suddenly dry, and glanced up and down the twisting street. Nobody was looking at him, or really coming his way either.

 

“Alohomora,” whispered Regulus. On a whim, he tapped the red triangle with his wand.

 

The door swung open near-silently, yawningly revealing a dark, dark, hallway.

 

Regulus adjusted his hold on his wand again, hands starting to feel horribly clammy.

 

Forcing down all childish thoughts of monsters, Regulus stepped inside and softly closed the door after him.

 

He couldn’t quite quell the slightly panicked thought of _and into the belly of the beast we go._

 

Had he been less nervous, he probably would have scoffed at his own melodrama- he certainly would have done if someone else had said it.

 

The only light in the hall was a thin beam which seemed to be coming through a keyhole of some sort. Hardly sufficient to reveal possible hazards or attackers.

 

Regulus lifted his wand aloft and cast, “Lumos.”

 

The bluish light of the spell threw slightly unnatural-looking shadows on the walls.

 

The hallway seemed very, very, long. There was a rickety staircase about half-way down, a door at the end.

 

All was quiet.

 

And then, starting to feel more and more foolish and nervous by the second, Regulus Black began to creep down the hallway of a strange building he had no real business being in, hoping desperately that there would be nothing to find.

 

 

It was a very distressed Regulus who left 16 Knockturn Alley some time later, hood still up and cloak swirling around in his haste.

 

He slammed the door shut behind him, and started to hurry up the street, mind whirring frantically- trying to fit what he had seen into the way the world was supposed to be, and failing miserably.

 

Something very sharp and angry and sick clawed at the inside of his chest.

 

_Well Sirius will be delighted, at least,_ thought Regulus, harshly swallowing down what was either half a sob or a bubble of somewhat hysterical laughter.

 

Father had lied, that much was clear.

 

_(If he lied about this, what else has he lied about?)_

 

_(If Sirius had been right about this, what else might he be right about?)_

 

Father had lied, and so had Mother, probably, and maybe even the _Dark Lord himself_ had lied.

 

The memory of pale, empty, eyes danced around inside his head. Regulus shook himself- much like a dog- in an attempt to dispel it.

 

_It really was ridiculously easy to discover- almost insultingly so. No wonder Sirius managed to work it out with just a ledger- whatever happened to Slytherin discretion?_

 

Regulus frowned to himself, resolutely ignoring the treacherous warmth gathering behind his eyes, and an awful blend of guilt and betrayal sitting heavily in his stomach.

 

_A better question: whatever happened to morality_ \-  _to right and wrong? What’s the point of it if you can just pick and choose what parts you’re going to follow? What was the point of teaching me_ any _of it if they were just going to ignore it and-_

 

Regulus collided with someone’s back then, and staggered back a few steps.

 

The someone turned around them, revealing themselves to be a wizard only about a hair taller than Regulus, though much, much, sturdier. He had brown eyes and a rather distinctive blotchy birthmark on one of his cheeks.

 

“I’m so sorry,” began Regulus automatically, because despite it all, he still had _manners,_ damn it.

 

His gaze slid then to the other man the first wizard had been shielding from view- a tall, thin, individual with wiry red hair- and then froze on the slight figure the second wizard had pinned against the wall and at wand-point.

 

A very young, scared-looking, figure.

 

The cleverest thing to do, in that situation, would probably have been to act as if he had seen nothing, continue to apologise, and then walk away, leaving the child-like form to their fate. (It was certainly the course of action most of his family and peers would have encouraged.)

 

And Regulus Black, it had to be said, was often seen as a very clever sort. More pre-possessing of common sense and Slytherin cunning than some of his more... _ambitious_ Housemates. The Hat had briefly considered him for Ravenclaw, after all, and that hadn’t been out of any secret love of learning. (A secret fondness for word-play might have been a minor factor, however. Sirius in particular was not allowed to know this.)

 

But even on an ordinary day, Regulus Black had surprisingly strong moral convictions- very definite ideas of what was right and wrong- for someone with his upbringing. Some things were clearly alright- such as not kicking a Krup or Kneazle, no matter how annoyed one was- some things were very clearly not- such as pushing a terrified First Year down the grand staircase- and some things fell into a rather murky, grey area- like stealing, which could often, but not always, be justified.

 

Hurting children who didn’t deserve it- and sometimes children who were perhaps a touch more deserving than others- was one of the things which Regulus thought fell rather firmly into the ‘drowning puppies’ side of things. Abandoning said children was only slightly more forgivable.

 

Regulus would not be able to rest easy, knowing that he had abandoned someone so helpless-looking. Damn his soft heart.

 

And today was not an ordinary day for Regulus- not by a long shot.

 

Everything seemed to happen very quickly, then.

 

Regulus’ eyes snapped back to the man with the birthmark’s. The absent-minded pleasantry died in his throat.

 

The wizard’s eyes widened.

 

Regulus pulled his wand out of his pocket, and pointed it at the red-haired wizard.

 

“Stupefy!”, shouted Regulus, and the man dropped like a stone.

 

The probable-child sprinted away without a second glance, cloak flapping.

 

The man with the birthmark started towards Regulus then, expression rather foreboding, and despite the fact that Regulus had his wand out and the man did not, Regulus still moved back several steps- straight into someone else’s wand.

 

“Petrificus Totalus,” said a soft voice. A woman’s voice.

 

And Regulus found his every muscle to be suddenly frozen in place, and now he was off-balance and falling backwards, the woman’s arms catching him and lowering him gently to the ground.

 

Something flowery and slightly familiar tickled at his nostrils.

 

She moved back too quickly for him to catch a glimpse of anything more than long dark hair and green robes.

 

Then the witch said something in a language he thought sounded vaguely familiar, though he couldn’t put a name to it or tell what she had said. A pale blue light flooded his vision for a moment, and then Regulus was staring up at the over-cast sky again, strange shapes still swirling about over it.

 

The cobblestones dug unpleasantly into his back. He couldn’t do anything about it.

 

“Anything?”, asked a man, who was probably the man with the birthmark. He had a surprisingly pleasant-sounding voice. Part of Regulus wondered if he sang. Another part of Regulus told the first part to shut the fuck up.

 

“No,” said the witch, disappointment obvious. “No such luck, I’m afraid. Any chance of recovering-”

 

“’Fraid not,” said the wizard. “Took us two months the first time, and the whole family will know we’re coming now. Best to leave it for now, I think. What’ll we do with _this?_ ”

 

Regulus- despite being slightly dazed and somewhat afraid and still reeling over the earlier events of the day- was more than slightly offended at being referred to as ‘ _this’._

 

The woman was quiet for a few moments.

 

A small patch of blue sky appeared amongst the clouds.

 

Regulus was starting to feel very uncomfortable indeed, though movement was returning to his toes. He discreetly flexed them inside his boots.

 

“Is he anyone important?”, asked the witch. “I mean- do you recognise him? Are his parents anything special?”

 

The little spot of blue was drowned out by grey again, before the sky was blotted out entirely by the man with the birthmark, who had leaned over to examine Regulus intently.

 

Regulus wanted to spit in his face and tell him that- for whatever it was worth right now- he was a _Black,_ because that was supposed to mean something.

 

“No,” said the man, straightening up again. “Haven’t a clue who he is- clothes are pretty fancy, though.”

 

“No one who could afford those clothes themselves would be wandering around here on their own with a huge bruise on their face,” said the woman, as if it was obvious. “I’m sure he’ll be missed- people have their preferences, after all- though no one around here’s going to say anything.”

 

“Ah,” said the wizard, sounding slightly uncomfortable. “Is he a-”

 

“I have no idea. Hardly matters. At any rate, we’ll take him with us- he looks about the same age as number five. Might help loosen his tongue a bit.”

 

“Are you sure? He’s already managed to slip away three times already- he got as far as the Floo last time, and he didn’t have a cellmate to help him then.”

 

“ _Yes,_ Reginald, I am sure- oh, don’t make that face. It’s your own fault, you know- we could have just ignored him if you hadn’t let him see your face. I doubt knowing your name will make much of a difference- he won’t remember in a few minutes, anyway.”

 

“Oh, so you want to-”

 

“ _Obviously,_ Reginald,” interrupted the witch, sounding impatient. “Contrary to what one might think, this isn’t fucking amateur hour- if we fuck up, we fix it. _You_ fucked up, so _you_ can fix it.”

 

Reginald sighed, but obligingly stepped up and pointed his wand at Regulus’ face.

 

Regulus tried, desperately, to sit up, roll away, even just to close his eyes. No such luck. The best he could do was a small, panicked, jerk of the foot.

 

The last coherent thought that Regulus would think for a while was,  _I’m not going to be back for four- Father won’t be pleased._

 

And then Reginald said, “Obliviate!”

 

Regulus was floating up, up, and up in a sea of white.

 

Distantly he heard a woman ask, “Is he alright?”

 

A man answered her. “Yeah, he’ll be fine. Might’ve just over-done it a bit- think I got the last few days too.”

 

“Why do I ever let you do anything?”, bemoaned the woman.

 

And just as Regulus was starting to come back down from the cloudy sea to a clouded sky and hard ground, the woman said, “Stupefy!”

 

And then everything went dark.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I know that the way I skimmed over what he actually found and the subsequent road-block is a bit cheap, and I'm sorry. Please don't be too upset with me- we'll get there; I promise. Memories- much like most things we temporarily misplace- have a funny way of coming back to us once we've stopped looking.)


	13. A Thicket of Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! As usual, huge thank you to everyone who's added something to this fic, even if it's just another hit. I see you, and you're wonderful for both that and simply because you're you. So thank you.
> 
> RL has become very stressful again all of a sudden seeing as school started again last Tuesday. I'll work out a balance soon enough (I hope) and updates might become a bi-weekly thing again. There's going to be quite a gap between when I post the end of this fic and the start of the next. That gap may or may not be occasionally filled with little bits and pieces- deleted scenes, what so-and-so was up to during chapter x, a certain chapter from a different pov, things that were mentioned but never fully expanded upon. That sort of thing. We'll have to wait and see.
> 
> Hope you're all doing well!
> 
> Up next, we meet the Potters.

**21st & 22nd July 1975**

Effie Potter was aware, as she sat in a Conjured chair in one of the few private rooms St. Mungo’s had to offer, that things were going on before her very eyes which she was not fully aware of.

 

It didn’t sit well with her.

 

“I’m going to get some tea,” said James all of a sudden, voice uncharacteristically subdued. “Mum, do you want any? Dad?”

 

Effie shook her head.

 

“No, thank you, James,” said Monty from beside her.

 

“I’ll go with you,” said Sirius, looking rather troubled as he cast one last glance at the occupants of the two beds. “I’ve to check for an owl again, anyway.”

 

He slid a sheaf of parchment and a self-inking quill into his pocket, apparently about to pen letter number three.

 

The two boys left the room with far less fanfare than usual, leaving Effie and Monty alone in the hushed room.

 

There was a slightly oppressive atmosphere to the room, which Effie found vaguely ridiculous- it wasn’t as if anyone was dying, for Merlin’s sake! She couldn’t quite bring herself to break the quiet though- it seemed wrong, somehow.

 

Monty squeezed her hand. Effie squeezed back in silent reassurance, still carefully watching their reason for being in St. Mungo’s early on a Monday afternoon for any signs of wakefulness or discomfort.

 

It had been, Effie tiredly reflected, an exceptionally strange last few hours.

 

Her day had started at an ungodly hour of the morning, with the sudden arrival of James into her and Monty’s bedroom.

 

Her son had been unusually panicked, babbling frantically and waving a scrap of parchment around, obviously just out of bed himself.

 

In-between all of the “Please, Mum, come on, get up,” and “Dad, come on we have to do something,” Effie eventually managed to make out the words ‘Sirius is gone’, and her heart had clenched in a rather alarming way.

 

James managed to calm down enough to fully explain that Sirius had disappeared not long ago- James thought he’d been woken by the roar of that motorbike Monty had brought home for them- and left behind a scribbled note talking about a Patronus, his younger brother who he didn’t really talk to, and a _cellmate_ because Regulus Black had been abducted, apparently.

 

Sirius’ promise to be back before dawn hadn’t seemed very reassuring.

 

For a very long moment, Effie had hoped that it was just an elaborate and unusually distasteful joke- that James would break down into gales of laughter and a grinning Sirius would pop his head through the door with a half-hearted apology, and then Effie would find herself scolding them without any real heat for worrying her so.

 

Except that neither James nor Sirius would ever do something like that- James would never _pretend_ to be afraid, even for someone else’s sake, and Sirius seemed to go out of his way not to upset her or Monty; a far cry from how he treated James.

 

And James had yet to so much as crack a smile.

 

The three of them had sat up in the upstairs sitting room in silence, still in their nightclothes, sipping tea and twitching whenever there was a noise from outside.

 

Effie had been very tired at this point but she knew that there was no chance in hell that she was going to go back to bed.

 

She had nearly dropped her cup when the motorbike’s engine had suddenly cut through the night air.

 

James had jumped upright and sprinted to the front door, nearly falling down the stairs in the process.

 

Effie and Monty had followed a slightly more sedate pace.

 

Sirius had still been sitting astride the motorcycle, just outside the front door, with a pale face and two slumped over passengers.

 

Effie’s heart had immediately found itself down around her knees, fearing for the worst.

 

“Floo St. Mungo’s- _please_ \- quick, I think Harry’s still bleeding and Reg went quiet a while ago,” Sirius had said in a half-whisper, eyes wide.

 

“Are they-”

 

Sirius shook his head. “Just asleep- Harry dozed off again right before you opened the door.”

 

“Oi, Prongs, keep your distance,” Sirius had said then, attention snapping to James who had approached the bike. “They’re covered in some magic dust, apparently. Haven’t a clue what it does, just that I’m not to breathe it in.”

 

“Ah,” James had said, taking a few steps back.

 

Monty (predictably) had perked up at the sound of a magical dust, and had simply _had_ to take a sample of it- who _knows_ what it does, Effie? It could be a brand-new invention, for all we know. Think of the possibilities!

 

Effie adored her husband, though sometimes she wondered how she hadn’t strangled him yet.

 

“James, go inside and Floo the hospital- tell them to expect two emergency arrivals,” Effie had said, and James had run off without complaint.

 

Effie and Monty had been left to help Sirius disentangle himself from the two sleepers, both of whom had seemingly fallen asleep on him.

 

The next few hours were a blur of waiting rooms and a dull sense of dread, both James and Sirius had managed to fall asleep on the uncomfortable waiting room chairs. The four of them had been the receivers of several confused and pitying looks, as they were all still in their pyjamas, and James had taken to pacing agitatedly when he was awake.

 

Sirius had been stony-faced and unusually silent. Monty had disappeared at one point to find a quill and parchment, and had spent quite some time writing several letters, and then quietly talking about something with Sirius in one of the more peaceful-looking corners of the hospital.

 

They had both returned looking slightly less on edge, though Monty had then fallen into a pensive, slightly troubled, silence and had had to write another letter.

 

Eventually, though, a Healer had come to assuage their fears. It was at this point that Monty- bless him- had arranged for the private room.

 

The Healer- a witch in her early fifties- had fixed Effie with a very serious look and had asked if she was going to have to involve the Department of Law Enforcement.

 

Both patients, she had explained, voice slightly hard, were somewhat malnourished, had been subject to numerous recent Memory Charms, had several concerning potions in their systems which had had to be spelled out of them, and were covered in a mysterious magical substance, which was currently under examination in a contamination unit, and no small amount of bruises. One of them, in fact, had had quite a concerning amount of recent injuries, not least of which was the laceration on his torso which had left him rather faint with blood loss.

 

Effie had caught the implication in the woman’s tone, and had been torn between outrage and appreciation for a job done right.

 

She had settled for firmly stating that both boys had been missing for several days, and that law enforcement would certainly be involved, and left it at that.

 

And then they had been left alone in the chokingly quiet room with the two abductees, and Effie had wondered if her vision had really gotten so bad that she was seeing double; James and Sirius beside her, James and Sirius asleep in bed.

 

Sirius’ younger brother Regulus looked very like him, was probably just as popular with the girls at school- though after a few moments, the differences became more apparent- right down to the fading bruise on his face.

 

(The Healer had said that that bruise was older than the rest, and had fixed Effie with a piercing look, gaze darting over to Sirius and back. Effie had met the look unflinchingly and repeated that law enforcement would most certainly be involved, trying her hardest to channel her late unflappable mother.)

 

But without the cover of night and dust and the fact that everyone had more important things to be worrying about, Regulus’ cellmate looked _terrifyingly_ like James. James’ thrice-damned hair, James’ narrow face, James’ sharp elbows.

 

Everyone had been amazed and discomfited by the resemblance. Sirius had hurriedly spit out all he knew about the boy, which wasn’t much- his name was Harry, he was about fourteen, and he was capable of casting a corporeal Patronus- a stag.

 

(Effie hadn’t missed the strange look on her son’s face at those words, or the significant look he and Sirius had exchanged after. She put it onto her mental list of not especially well-kept secrets which she was starting to get very tired of. If you were going to have secrets, she had always thought, you had better be able to keep it completely to yourself, instead of letting hints of it slip out from time to time.)

 

They had all taken turns going home to get changed and clean up a bit, though everyone stubbornly refused the opportunity to curl up in bed and try to pretend that it was still Sunday, when the worst thing to happen all day had been the sudden shortage of blackcurrant jam.

 

Sirius had also taken this time to write his first letter to 12 Grimmauld Place and tell them that his brother had been found- testament to how much he actually cared about Regulus, for all that all anyone had ever heard about him before now had been grumbling complaints and exasperated eye-rolls.

 

A rather large part of Effie Potter was rather furious that in the hours since Sirius’ first missive (and then the second about an hour later), neither of the Blacks had bothered to write back to him or even send the family house-elf to discuss matters.

 

But now Effie and Monty were alone with two unconscious and no doubt traumatised teenagers, the only sound their quiet breathing and the ticking of the clock. Dust motes swirled in the slats of July sun which came in through the blinds, and the room seemed timeless; as if they had always sat there, and always would.

 

Effie squeezed her husband’s hand; he leaned over and kissed her temple.

 

They still didn’t speak.

 

Sirius and James came back a while later with neither tea nor a letter from the Blacks. They didn’t say anything- just kept on exchanging looks which seemed to speak volumes and glancing uneasily at the two sleepers.

 

Time passed.

 

A witch came around with a tea trolley- Effie had a cup of tea, Monty some orange juice. The boys practically cleared out the sandwiches.

 

More time passed.

 

Regulus woke up briefly- stared at them all with dazed grey eyes, just like his brother’s. Sirius had been asleep again at that point.

 

Regulus didn’t say anything, didn’t respond to any of their questions- he just stared at them, turned his head with what looked to be a great deal of difficulty, and regarded his cellmate in between sleepy blinks. He fell asleep again shortly thereafter.

 

Even more time passed.

 

The mysterious Harry also briefly regained consciousness, though he seemed even more dazed than Regulus- he just lay there and blinked slowly at the ceiling for about three minutes. Admittedly, this might have been because nobody thought to give him the glasses which were on the bedside table.

 

An odd feeling hit Effie when Harry opened his eyes and she saw that they weren’t hazel like James’ (and hers), or even blue like Monty’s. There were a very unfamiliar shade of bright green.

 

Harry slipped back into the land of the dreamers rather quickly.

 

They ate dinner- cottage pie all around- only slightly more cheerfully than anything else they had done that day; the boys had quietly enthused over the up-coming game (England were to play Ireland for the ‘76 European Cup qualifiers on Thursday) and Effie had fallen back on her time-honoured tradition of watching Monty try to do the crossword and tell him an outrageously wrong answer whenever he hesitated on a clue.

 

Tuesday faded into a bruise-coloured night; James and Sirius were sent home despite their protests. Effie had gone with them for the first few hours, before swapping with Monty in the middle of the night.

 

Wednesday passed in much the same manner as Tuesday had, with the added bonus of yet more silence from the Blacks (Effie was grinding her teeth and Sirius’ face was thunderous whenever he returned without an owl) and dreary hospital gift-shop magazines.

 

Neither Regulus nor Harry woke again that day.

 

Monty’s stack of parchment was starting to look very thin.

 

Nobody spoke all that much, though Effie had thought to bring her small wireless which happily informed them of the news in between the terrible music children listened to nowadays, and a few songs which Effie recalled fondly from her youth.

 

She mostly buried herself in her novel. Monty did the same.

 

Sirius managed to cajole James into playing a very loud and competitive game of Exploding Snap, which Effie had both had to make them confine to the corner furthest from the two patients, and cast a Silencing Charm over.

 

The sun was starting to dip rather low in the sky when a Healer came in, not the same one from before. He flicked his wand at the two boys, whilst regarding the silent card game with a great deal of distaste. (Admittedly, James was now short an eyebrow and Sirius’ entire shirt-front was rather singed-looking.)

 

The Healer hmmed loudly and then said that they should be discharged immediately, before someone more in need arrived.

 

This last part was said somewhat sharply, punctuated by the fact that the Silencing Charm had chosen now to fail and as such, everyone could hear when James said, “You motherfu-”, before being cut off by the explosion of Sirius’ deck.

 

The Healer had looked pained, and then informed Effie that she would have to sign several forms at the front desk to have the two patients discharged.

 

He looked very glad to leave.

 

Sirius- looking rather unwell at the thought- volunteered to write to his parents yet again. Monty gave him another letter to send- to an old friend in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

 

James and Monty then devolved into a _very_ hypothetical conversation about the explosiveness of over-heated unicorn horn, something which neither of them had _any_ experience with, of course.

 

Effie was faced with an absolutely ridiculous amount of paper-work in order to get Harry and Regulus discharged.

 

(It helped, admittedly, that James and Harry bore an eerie resemblance to one another and that Sirius and Regulus were so obviously brothers, even if it probably wasn’t entirely legal to pretend that she was legal guardian to all of them.)

 

They took a Portkey home, Regulus and Harry still fast asleep. (The beds had been temporarily enchanted into Portkeys by a very helpful young nurse. They returned to St. Mungo’s ten minutes after arriving in the Potters’ front garden.)

 

Once one pair of teenage boys was safely set up in two of the spare bedrooms, Effie turned to the other pair, both of whom still looked slightly shell-shocked.

 

“Why don’t the two of you have a rest? Or even play some Quidditch to cheer yourselves up a bit?”

 

“Yes, Mum,” said James dutifully, Sirius smiling wanly at her.

 

“In fact,” Monty piped up, “why don’t we have Remus and Peter over tomorrow? They could stay for the weekend.”

 

Both boys perked up.

 

“Not until Friday, though,” said James, Sirius nodding along beside him.

 

“Yeah, Remus has a family thing- Muggle family thing- and Pete’s busy, er, helping his mum with the shop. July’s always busy.”

 

“Alright then,” said Effie. “I’ll write to the Lupins and Mrs Pettigrew tomorrow evening, then.”

 

“Thanks, Mum,” said James, brightly.

 

“See you at dinner,” said Sirius, and then the two trooped off towards the back garden, heads already bent together and James starting to gesture with his hands.

 

Effie watched them go, feeling fond.

 

Monty put his arm around her shoulders. She squeezed his hand.

 

“I’ve gotten as much as I can from Sirius, about the other night,” said Monty. “He doesn’t remember a whole pile- tired and in a bit of a panic. He thinks he could find the house again, though. I’ll ask the other two when they wake up.”

 

“Of course, darling,” said Effie, patting his hand. “Do remember the memory loss, though- they mightn’t remember much of anything for the next few weeks.”

 

Monty sighed. “Yes, dearest. But,” his voice took on a very determined edge, “I’ll have those-those _people_ before the Wizengamot, if not the ICW’s Courts themselves, if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

 

“I know you will, Monty. I have every faith in you,” said Effie, and she meant it because Fleamont Henry Potter was a lot of things, and irresolute and ineffectual were not any of them. What he _was,_ however, was someone who cared very much about the happiness of others, especially children, and he would fight for said happiness with everything he had. It was one of the innumerable reasons why Effie loved him so fiercely.

 

Effie and Monty stood there then, in a companionable silence. The garden looked rather lovely under the golden light of the setting sun- like an oil painting come to life. (Though admittedly, an oil painting which featured two dark blurs whizzing through the sky every now and then, whooping joyfully.)

 

And as Effie stood there, she found herself thinking about the boys’ insistence that their friends not come over tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow, and that morphed into remembering how pale and sickly poor Remus Lupin sometimes looked, and the old, old, rumour that Lyall Lupin- a well-known authority when it came to spirits and Dark creatures, even if the height of his fame had been a good ten years ago now- had once offended Fenrir Greyback himself, and the advanced Transfiguration book James had requested for his thirteenth birthday- the one with instructions for the Animagus transformation at the back.

 

(And she remembered those odd nicknames the boys had given each other sometime last year, and the sudden increase in rather strange in-jokes.)

 

And she wondered.

 

And then Effie found her thoughts drifting until she was remembering when Sirius had turned up on their doorstep two Saturdays ago- hands shaking and eyes red- with most of his worldly possessions at his side and a bruise on his temple. And she remembered the twin bruise on his little brother’s face- older than the rest he had sustained in captivity- and the Blacks’ continued silence, and how it was very possible that Regulus Black had been missing for as many as nearly ten days and yet there was not a whisper of a missing boy at the Ministry.

 

And Effie Potter wondered some more.

 

(Something was going to come of all this wondering one day. She’d see that it did.)

 


	14. Upon Further Reflection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Firstly, wow. Just, wow. We cleared 2000 hits during the week, which is kind of incredible, kudos, comments, and bookmarks have reached new heights, and subscriptions for the fic have long since left my first one in the dust. All in all, you're all absolutely incredible, and I love you for it. Thank you.
> 
> Secondly, school is stressful thanks for asking, we're nearly finished this fic already, and starting shortly after I post the last chapter of this, I hope to have part 2 of this series up. Part 2 will likely be that thing I mentioned in my last AN, if everyone's amenable to the idea, though these scenes mightn't be as polished as anyone would like. I am under just a tiny bit of pressure at the moment.
> 
> Enough about rl, though- we all come here to escape it, after all. Happy reading!
> 
> Featuring more Realisations (you thought we were finished with those, didn't you), Meeting Effie and Monty (sort of), and A Conversation With Regulus.
> 
> Fun fact about this chapter: bc I'm kind of awful to myself sometimes, nothing much changed between the various drafts up until the final draft, in which an entire new sequence was written in, a scene was put in which originally took place in chapter fifteen, and the entire conversation near the end was changed so dramatically that most of the plot of chapter fifteen no longer makes sense and has to be rewritten. Hurray for me.

**25th July 1975**

Harry didn’t wake up all at once, sitting bolt upright and immediately fully alert and aware of his surroundings.

 

He drifted in and out of being awake, sometimes suddenly vaguely aware of the mattress under him and just how nice it was not having to move, and sometimes not aware of anything at all.

 

He managed to open his eyes a few times and caught glimpses of a bright, blurry, room, before surrendering to the temptation to close his eyes again and just not think.

 

It was nice.

 

Eventually, though, Harry did start to wake up properly, though this too was a disjointed stop and start process.

 

Rolling over suddenly.

 

The smell of something sweet.

 

Cool pillow becoming warm pillow.

 

White ceiling.

 

Sit up, look at the blurry room.

 

Was that a window?

 

Maybe.

 

Was that a person?

 

Maybe.

 

Flop back down, feeling dizzy and tired.

 

A voice, a boy. Who was that? “-please, Mum.”

 

A woman. “Of course, James. There really is nothing to worry about, though.”

 

The boy again. He was nearly familiar. “Isn’t that my line?”

 

The woman laughed. “Out with you- we’ll be finished soon.”

 

White ceiling again. Blink one, blink two.

 

Blink three was a very, very, long one.

 

“-Harry? Can you look at me?” A woman. She sounded nice. Kind, even.

 

Harry opened his eyes again.

 

There was someone sitting by his bedside, too close to resolve into a clear image. Blue. The woman?

 

“Harry?”

 

Definitely the woman.

 

“Mmm?”

 

“Are you feeling alright?”

 

“Mhm.”

 

“Can you sit up?”, asked a man. Where was he?

 

Harry tried to sit up. His arms felt like they were made of jelly.

 

He gave up rather quickly.

 

His eyes slid shut.

 

When he opened them again, Harry was propped up by very soft pillows.

 

There was a desk on the other side of the room, by the half-open door. It was a nice-looking desk, as far as desks went. Very...desk-like.

 

“Harry?”

 

The woman in blue was still beside him. There was someone in green next to her. The man?

 

“Yeah?”, said Harry, tongue heavy. His mouth tasted awful.

 

A glass was pressed to his mouth.

 

“Have a drink,” said the man. He sounded nice, too.

 

Harry had a drink. Water. Lovely, cold, water. His throat was so dry.

 

Harry blinked forcefully, trying to wake up. His brain felt rather fuzzy. He didn’t like it.

 

“That would be the potions, dear,” said the woman.

 

“Huh?”, said Harry, the epitome of wit.

 

The woman sounded slightly amused. “The healers at St. Mungo’s- the hospital, dear- gave you some potions. They said that you’d be back to rights in no time.”

 

“Oh. How long...”, he trailed off. The words were getting stuck.

 

“Have you been asleep?”, finished the man.

 

“Mhm,” said Harry, not very sure if his head wouldn’t fall off if he nodded.

 

“You were awake for a little bit on Tuesday afternoon, but before that I think you fell asleep very early on Tuesday morning. It’s Friday morning, now,” clarified the man.

 

“Ah. Thanks.”

 

They spoke then, Harry and the two kind-sounding strangers.

 

Or rather, they asked him questions, and he made noises which might have been answers and tried his hardest to keep his eyes open. It wasn’t easy.

 

She was Euphemia, Harry learned. Effie.

 

He was Fleamont. Monty.

 

Harry was in their house- he’d been discharged from the hospital yesterday.

 

They asked about his parents. He couldn’t tell them.

 

They said he could stay in the spare room until he was ready to go home.

 

Harry didn’t want to be a bother.

 

It was fine, one of them had said. What was one more teenager in a house full of them?

 

Monty was full of questions about the dust. (So was Harry.)

 

Harry didn’t have very many answers.

 

Effie asked about the people upstairs.

 

Harry hadn’t had very many answers there either.

 

Regulus was just three doors down, someone had said.

 

Harry had relaxed somewhat.

 

Harry mumbled something about gaps and memories and missing time. He wasn’t very sure what he was trying to say.

 

Monty loved Potions. (Like Snape and Slytherins. Was he a Slytherin? Were any people who weren’t in Slytherin (or Hermione) any good at Potions?)

 

Monty loved Potions, and Harry was on a special potion- for memory loss. It might work, it might not. It was new. Revolutionary, in a way.

 

Despite his best efforts, Harry’s eyelids were just too heavy to keep open any longer. He closed his eyes whilst someone was talking. It might have been a bit rude. He would’ve said sorry if he could.

 

 

When Harry woke up, he was sprawled out on a very comfy bed.

 

He rubbed at his eyes, let out a yawn or three.

 

God, this was comfortable.

 

He tried his best to look at the room around him without moving too much.

 

Nice decorations, he thought, though it was a bit hard to tell. Most of them were just colourful smudges.

 

If it hadn’t been for the fact that Harry was after having the most shitty who knew how long he had ever had in his entire _life,_ he might have been able to relax enough to fall back asleep.

 

He _had_ had the most shitty who knew how long he had ever had in his entire _life_ though, so that didn’t happen.

 

Instead, Harry started to wake up more fully, bits and pieces of that earlier conversation as well as last night (or, really, three nights ago) starting to come back to him.

 

It occurred to Harry then that he was in what one might call a tight spot. A tricky situation. A bit of bother.

 

He sat up slowly, muscles he didn’t even know he _had_ groaning in protest.

 

There was a bedside table. His glasses might have been on it.

 

Harry reached out and felt around for a bit, nudging a glass, what might have been his wand, and something else in the process. He found his glasses and the room finally came into focus.

 

Ooh, nice room. Aunt Petunia would have killed for that dresser- she’d always had a soft spot for anything vintage.

 

There was a pile of cloth on the desk by the door- were they his clothes?

 

(Something silvery glinted in the sunlight, peeking out of the cloth.)

 

Harry looked down at himself. He was wearing someone else’s pyjamas. They were blue. A tiny snitch danced around the cuff of his left sleeve.

 

Harry was suddenly more than slightly envious of the owner of these pyjamas.

 

Arms aching the entire while, Harry messed around with his pillows until he could relax against them whilst sitting up.

 

There was a window right next to his bed. He could see a garden through it.

 

It was a lovely garden, all things considered. Big, green, a few trees here and there and the odd bloom-filled flowerbed. Easily enough room to play the pick-up version of Quidditch he had played at the Burrow, and what might have been a pond off over yonder. Everything you’d want in a garden, really.

 

The room was quiet. There wasn’t even a clock to tick quietly. Just Harry and his breathing.

 

Harry blearily wondered if something was going to happen to him now, to interrupt the nice, quiet, moment. He didn’t usually get to enjoy them, after all.

 

The peace stretched on.

 

And then something did happen, just not to Harry.

 

A door opened, and a boy said suddenly, “Well maybe _I_ want to! Doesn’t what _I_ want matter?”

 

His voice was muffled slightly by distance, but he still sounded oddly close by.

 

He also sounded oddly familiar, though Harry couldn’t quite place him just yet. It seemed a bit early for all this.

 

“Not when you’re being an idiot about things, no,” retorted a second boy, who sounded like a strange combination of the first one (if perhaps slightly less posh) and someone else. Harry had the nagging feeling that he should have known who this was.

 

“How on _earth_ is wanting to return to my own bed idiotic? Look, Sirius, they’ve all been very nice to me here, but this is where _you’ve_ disappeared to- _I_ belong at home with Mother and Father.”

 

Harry’s breath caught in his throat then, as it all clicked into place and the last of the haze cleared from his mind.

 

Sirius and Regulus and the motorbike and the cell and the clocks and the dust and the dark and _time travel and the tiniest echo of a_ _nearly-forgotten_ _thought, ‘Charms- Hermione- Time-Turner!’_

 

 _Oh,_ no.

 

“ _Home,”_ scoffed Sirius, bringing Harry back into the moment. “That _hell-hole_ is far from a home- for Merlin’s sake, Regulus, they haven’t even bothered sending _Kreacher_ to check up on you, let alone reply to any of the owls I sent them to let them know that you’d been kidnapped by some lunatics in the middle of nowhere! I told them where you were- they could write to you or come get you whenever they want, but they haven’t.”

 

“It doesn’t work like that- you _know_ that! _I_ have to go back to _them-_ the House of Black is starting to run out of sons, in case you haven’t noticed.”

 

“You’ve been missing for over a _week,_ Regulus!”

 

“It was five days at most! Christ, Sirius, _what_ is the matter with you?”

 

There was a pause, then Sirius said, “Swearing like a Muggle doesn’t make you cool, Regulus.”

 

“Fuck off, Sirius.”

 

The voices were coming closer now. Harry thought that they must be nearly outside his door.

 

“Did you read that letter I gave you?”, asked Sirius all of a sudden.

 

“Yes.”

 

“And?”

 

“ _And,_ nothing- I can barely remember half of it! I know that I went to Knockturn afterwards, and I saw... _something-_ I just can’t remember what. All I remember about Knockturn Alley is that it’s probably the last place I was before they took me, and _no,_ I can’t remember how that happened either.”

 

“Deep breath, Reggie.”

 

“Shut up, Sirius.”

 

“I didn’t know you’d been to Knockturn,” said Sirius, voice oddly subdued. “I haven’t gone myself yet. I think I’ll have to now, though. I won’t tell you what the letter said- nothing’ll come of it for ages, if it ever does at all. You’ll probably remember yourself before anything happens.”

 

“Besides,” Sirius’ tone brightened again, “I know how it physically pains you to think ill of the Noble and Most Ancient Bollocks.”

 

“Oh, piss off, Sirius,” said Regulus, not sounding as if he really meant it. “You really need to think of a new one, incidentally- you’ve been calling them that for the last three years. It’s starting to get old.”

 

Sirius sputtered but didn’t actually say anything.

 

Regulus sighed. “Look- I’ll stay here for another few days, in case they write. But if I haven’t heard anything by Monday, then I’m going home myself, and you can’t stop me, alright?”

 

Sirius made a frustrated noise.

 

“Alright,” he said, sounding uncharacteristically defeated. “See you around, Reg.”

 

“Bye.”

 

Harry didn’t hear where one brother went, but the other came right up to his door and seemed to stand there for several moments.

 

Just as Harry was thinking about calling out for him to come in, he hurried past and a few moments later there was the sound of another door closing.

 

Harry had only caught a glimpse of dark hair and striped pyjamas, though he was fairly sure that it had been Regulus. His mouth twisted unconsciously.

 

At least _Regulus_ was able to get out of bed. Must’ve been nice.

 

Harry let out a breath, and opened the window as wide as he could in an attempt to stave off the feeling that the walls were starting to close in on him. Not a good time for these thoughts.

 

Everything went quiet again.

 

And now Harry was left alone with the dawning realisation that everything was horribly wrong and- as most terrible things in his life seemed to be lately- it was almost definitely at least mostly his fault.

 

Fuck.

 

He was sitting up in bed in a spare bedroom in his _grandparents’_ house if Sirius was here _(he had grandparents),_ and his _father_ was alive and somewhere close by and surely not much older than Harry was now.

 

His stomach did a somersault.

 

His _mother_ was alive and young- he hadn’t even _thought_ about her.

 

_Fuck._

 

Still working under the presumption that all of this was real, then Harry was definitely, undeniably, twenty-ish years in the past and his parents were alive and just _teenagers_ and he was sitting in his _grandparents’_ house and Sirius didn’t know him yet and Sirius had a brother who was probably going to be a Death Eater soon and-and-and-

 

Deep breath.

 

What was more, Harry abruptly realised, heart sinking horribly, was that sooner or later he was going to have to tell people where he had come from.

 

He was either going to have to face wide-spread scorn and disbelief for claiming to a time-traveller _(and would he have to tell them who his parents were? Was he going to have to look his dad in the eye and tell him that his friend would betray him?)_ or else he was going to have to stoop to a new low and _lie_ to his own flesh and blood- who were the sort of people to take in and look after a virtual stranger without complaint.

 

A knot of guilt tightened in his chest.

 

This wasn’t good. This was very much the opposite of good.

 

_Am I going to lie to them? Would they even believe the truth?_

 

_(Is it really true?)_

 

Harry frowned at himself and stared out the window again.

 

There were plenty of things he didn’t understand about his current situation without adding doubt as to the reality of it all into the mix.

 

The answers to most of his questions- which were chiefly variations of ‘what the fuck?’, and ‘ _why?_ ’- were probably somewhere to be found in the grey blanket-covered No Man’s Land between when he had last been with the Dursleys (and at this point, Harry had no idea of when that had been) and that very first day in the cell.

 

The strange clock room might have had something to do with it all.

 

All Harry could really call to mind from that entire stretch of time was Hedwig, a phone box, and three strangers in a corridor.

 

Not very helpful.

 

Everything else from that time was gone, like it had never happened at all.

 

Harry maintained that it was still probably his own fault.

 

And then there was the matter of the Cloak.

 

(And the necklace.)

 

Because the silvery thing poking out of his sorry-looking pile of clothes was none other than his Invisibility Cloak, which he had found in the same drawer as the wands that night. He’d instinctively _known_ that it was his Cloak too, as opposed to someone else’s.

 

So obviously Harry had taken it with him and stuffed it into his pocket before giving Regulus back his wand and letting Sirius lead the way out.

 

He didn’t think Sirius had seen the Cloak, but he wondered if the Potters had. ( _Surely_ they had, if he could see it from here.)

 

Half of Harry hoped that they had seen the Cloak and recognised it as being the same as James’, that they would believe him if he told them the truth.

 

A (possibly) slightly more sensible part of Harry hoped that they hadn’t seen the Cloak because he’d fucked with history enough as it was.

 

So he had the Cloak, had had the Cloak before he’d woken up in the cell, had likely had it when he had left Privet Drive. (Because surely he had left of his own accord, they couldn’t have taken him right in front of his relatives, could they?)

 

Harry still didn’t know _why,_ though.

 

And then there was the necklace.

 

A pendant of a school trunk put on a broken brown shoelace- the strange thing he vaguely remembered touching when he had been searching for his glasses.

 

Harry foggily remembered taking it from the same drawer as the wands and the Cloak, though he had no idea who owned it- the owner of the third wand, perhaps?

 

(He thought about the other people who had been downstairs with him- _and he hadn’t even known their names_ \- and wondered if one of the girls had owned the necklace, and maybe the old man had owned the wand. Something cold settled in his chest.)

 

Still, regardless of where it had come from, Harry had stuck in into his pocket on some strange impulse, so he supposed that it was his now.

 

Pity he’d never really been a jewellery person.

 

There was a hesitant knock at the door then, stirring Harry from his thoughts, and he snatched up his wand from the bedside table, heart rate picking up.

 

He put the wand back down when he saw who it was.

 

A fairly tall, somewhat lanky, dark-haired boy hovered in the doorway, also wearing pyjamas. There was a bruise on his face and he bore a noticeable resemblance to the boy with his arm around James Potter’s shoulders in all those old photos.

 

Regulus Black shifted on the spot, looking horribly, horribly, awkward.

 

Harry wished that he didn’t because now _he_ was feeling horribly, horribly, awkward.

 

After a long moment of staring at each other, in which nothing was said, Harry cleared his throat.

 

“Hi.”

 

Regulus blinked, an odd look on his face, and then said, somewhat stiffly, “Hello.”

 

There was another long, painful, silence because Regulus had apparently left his room just to stand in the doorway and stare fixedly at the wall beside Harry’s bed, only occasionally glancing at him.

 

“You can, er, come in, you know,” said Harry.

 

Something in Regulus’ shoulders relaxed a bit.

 

“Strangely enough, I’m not a vampire, so I don’t actually need your permission,” he said, and now it was as if they were sitting in a dark cell, or stiff-leggedly making their way across a starlit garden.

 

Harry rolled his eyes. “I rolled my eyes at you, just now,” he said out of habit.

 

The corner of Regulus’ mouth quirked up for a moment. “I know; I saw.”

 

“Oh piss off, Regulus,” said Harry, not quite looking at him.

 

Regulus came in then, closing the door behind him, but continued to avoid Harry’s gaze and hover awkwardly- this time at the end of the bed.

 

It was hard to believe that this was a (probably) future Death Eater.

 

It was equally as hard to believe that he was a Slytherin- Harry couldn’t imagine someone like Malfoy ever carrying on like this.

 

There was yet another pause, during which Harry examined the backs of his hands and the garden with an intensity he hadn’t thought himself capable of.

 

About half-way through, he chanced looking over at Regulus and accidentally made eye-contact.

 

They both looked away immediately.

 

The thing was, that for all that Harry had wondered what Regulus had looked like whilst they were in the dark, he was having a very hard time matching up the mental image he had built with the reality he was being faced with.

 

Because Regulus his cell mate was Regulus Black and was currently as real and alive and young as Harry himself, which meant that there was no escaping the fact that Harry’s situation was more than slightly fucked.

 

(Matters were not helped by the fact that Regulus Black, much like his older brother, was horribly good-looking, and such individuals always made Harry more than slightly nervous, even when he wasn’t actually interested in them like that.)

 

(Or so he told himself.)

 

Eventually Regulus said, sounding surprisingly casual despite the fact that he looked like he wished that he was anywhere else in the world but here, “You know Harry, I’ve come to realise something rather odd.”

 

Harry- torn from his deep study of his blanket- once again didn’t look directly at Regulus, but instead fixed his gaze on a point slightly to the left of one of his ears.

 

“Have you?”, he asked, fighting to keep his voice even as his heart started to thump in his ears.

 

_Does he know?_

 

“Yes,” said Regulus, straightening up slightly and holding his head up higher.

 

If he could only control his face a bit more, Harry thought, he would’ve been the very image of all those arrogant wankers at school.

 

“You see, Harry, the thing is is that you said that you were in Gryffindor, nearly fifteen, and going into Fifth Year. Which is why I kept quiet on the matter of my family- I knew that you and Sirius _had_ to know each other, even if you weren’t especially friendly, and I wasn’t sure if it would help my case for you to know me as his brother.

 

You _also_ said that you were an orphan- a Halfblood- and that you’d grown up with Muggles- your father hadn’t had any family left, _you_ said, and your mother was a Mud-Muggleborn. Of course I took you at your word- what could you gain from lying?”

 

Regulus still sounded quite calm, though there was a bit of an edge creeping into his voice, and his cheeks were starting to go a bit pink.

 

Harry gripped the blanket tightly and very determinedly did not look Regulus in the eye.

 

He could still see the way Regulus’ mouth twisted.

 

“So, Harry, _imagine_ my surprise when I first saw you properly- a brief moment of waking during our time in the hospital. There was Sirius, asleep by my side, and Sirius’ best friend James Potter- another Gryffindor going into Fifth Year, though unlike you, a Pureblood with several living magical relatives- and beside them were Mr and Mrs Potter. And in the bed next to mine was someone who looked almost identical to the boy sitting with my brother- nearly twins, I thought. It took me a few moments to work it out- hampered as I was by some sort of potion- but before I fell back asleep, I realised who that person was- _you,_ Harry.”

 

_Oh, God- he knows._

 

Regulus took a deep breath and let it out too quickly, hands momentarily curling into fists before relaxing again.

 

Harry opened his mouth- to say what he didn’t know, just _something_ to defend himself- but Regulus beat him to it.

 

“And when I woke up here and had a short while alone to gather my thoughts, it struck me as being very, _very,_ strange indeed that Sirius wouldn’t mention someone who looked like one of his best friends- especially given how much he goes on about him- that Sirius didn’t even seem to _recognise_ you. And when I thought about just how well-known my brother and his friends are at school, it seemed _most_ peculiar that no one had ever mentioned that James Potter of all people had a doppelgänger- that _I_ hadn’t noticed that there was someone else who was likely mistaken for James Potter as often as I myself am mistaken for Sirius. After all, it would be perfectly understandable for there to be a boy in a different House and year from me who I didn’t know, but for him to look just like _James Potter,_ of all people?”

 

Regulus pressed his lips together, swallowed, and seemed to be trying to think of something else to say.

 

“I’m not stupid, Harry,” he finished, something very hard and bitter about his face.

 

“Never said you were,” mumbled Harry, before falling silent again, trying desperately to think of some way out of the corner he’d been backed into. There really didn’t seem to be one.

 

(It didn’t help whatsoever that all Harry had really taken away from all of that was that Regulus was accusing him of being a liar, and had become surprisingly eloquent all of a sudden.)

 

The quiet stretched on, as elastic as someone else’s chewed gum and about as appealing.

 

“Was any of it true?”, blurted out Regulus, crossing his arms and raising his shoulders defensively.

 

“Or did you make it all up?”

 

The clever thing to do here would probably have been to laugh as cruelly as possible and lie and tell Regulus that no, none of it was real, that Harry was someone else entirely and had made up a whole new identity for the fun of it, and just let Regulus resent him for it for however much longer he was going to be stuck here.

 

(Because there was no doubt in Harry’s mind that he wasn’t going to be sticking around in the past for any longer than he absolutely had to.)

 

But Harry had grown somewhat fond (more than slightly fond, if he were to be honest)- even if he wasn’t sure if Regulus considered them friends- and had made the mistake of making eye-contact again.

 

There was a look on Regulus’ face then, something raw and fractured and desperate. It was angry and sad and offended and betrayed and a hundred thousand other awful things, and Harry really didn’t like it. What he liked even less was the fact that it was his fault that it was there, and that it seemed to be getting worse the longer he stayed quiet.

 

And then, before he could change his mind or try to talk himself out of it, Harry said, “It was all real- I didn’t make anything up.”

 

The knot in Harry’s chest started to loosen.

 

Regulus looked somewhat sceptical, and still had some of that terrible look on his face, so Harry kept going.

 

“Maybe,” he allowed, “I should’ve. Lied, that is. And maybe I would’ve if I’d known some things then, but I didn’t. I told you the truth.”

 

Regulus frowned. “Then who _are_ you?”

 

Harry swallowed. “I-”

 

He broke off, looking at the door. It didn’t seem quite as sound-proof as it had a moment before.

 

Regulus glanced back at the door too, seemingly mirroring his thoughts.

 

Harry still didn’t know what to do; he _wanted_ to tell Regulus the truth- tell _everyone_ the truth- but lying would be so much simpler.

 

And there was a very large part of Harry which missed Ron and Hermione and Sirius and Lupin and the Weasleys fiercely, a part of Harry which remembered being alone and distrusted all too well, a part of Harry which was desperate to have someone in his corner.

 

He gripped the bedsheets again.

 

_You’re a stupid fool, Harry Potter._

 

And then, before he could lose his nerve, Harry whispered, “Come here.”

 

Cautiously, Regulus came around to the side of the bed, and perched gingerly on the edge.

 

“I don’t know what to do,” confessed Harry. “I want to tell you everything- I want to _explain_ to everyone, but-”

 

“But what?”, asked Regulus, looking him dead in the eye.

 

He had grey eyes, Harry realised, slightly darker than he remembered Sirius’ being.

 

“But you’re not going to believe me,” said Harry, feeling very small in that moment. “No one’s going to- and that’s probably for the best- but I just don’t know how to fix this- and if I just _told_ them and they believed me then maybe it could all be better- but what if I make it wor-”

 

“Stop spiralling for a moment; I’m thinking,” said Regulus firmly.

 

Harry gaped at him.

 

“I wasn’t-”

 

“Yes you were, now be quiet.”

 

Harry was quiet.

Regulus looked at him then with a sort of intensity which made Harry feel very on edge- as if he was being appraised for something and was in danger of being found lacking.

 

“So you _want_ to tell everyone- including me- who you are, but you can’t because you don’t think we’d believe you and telling us could make things worse in some way,” said Regulus, looking at Harry but not seeming as if he was really seeing him. “But, you still _want_ to tell us in the hopes of improving something and possibly for honesty’s sake or whatever it is that Gryffindors are always banging on about. You also say that everything you’ve told me is the truth, however odd it may seem.”

 

Regulus trailed off there, and for lack of a better response, Harry nodded, breath catching in his throat.

 

Could this really be a way out?

 

“So, if you had no issue with telling me about yourself before, then either learning who I am, present company, or something else has made it so that you can’t reveal your identity now. Given the obvious, the second option is the most likely. So...”

 

Regulus went quiet again, eyes distant.

 

Harry dropped his gaze down to the blankets again, feeling a bit uncomfortable with all the face-to-face staring.

 

Regulus’ hands were in his lap. There was a small, slightly faded, birthmark on the back of his left hand, Harry noticed, half-hidden by the cuff of his sleeve. From what he could see of it, it was shaped a bit like a spade on a deck of Muggle cards.

 

Regulus’ voice interrupted his observations.

 

“You’re related to the Potters.”

 

It wasn’t a question.

 

Harry nodded.

 

“Closely related?”

 

Harry nodded again.

 

“Do they know?”

 

“No,” said Harry, finding his voice.

 

“You’re not a cousin.”

 

“No.”

 

“Or an uncle.”

 

“No.”

 

“Your father was the Potter, of course.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Would I have heard of your mother?”

 

“I don’t know,” said Harry honestly.

 

He looked back up at Regulus, who was studying him again with a great deal of intent.

 

“What’s that mark on your forehead?”, asked Regulus suddenly.

 

Harry blinked and resisted the urge to reach up and trace the lightning bolt.

 

“A scar.”

 

Regulus rolled his eyes. “So I had gathered.”

 

“I got it when my parents died.”

 

A line appeared between Regulus’ eyebrows, and he looked a bit like he was after swallowing something rather unpleasant.

 

“Who the _fuck_ would curse a baby?”

 

Harry smiled weakly. “He’s a bit of a wanker.”

 

“That might be an understatement,” muttered Regulus. He went back to staring at Harry again.

 

Harry sighed and, feeling as if he might regret this immensely in the not too distant future, said, “Listen.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“How about we stop having this conversation for a while? A very long while. And if I’m still here in a bit- if there’s no one around to hear- or even when school starts again- then I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”

 

Regulus went stiff for a second or two, and pressed his lips together, a lot of things seemingly going on inside his head.

 

“All I have is your word, Harry,” he pointed out tightly. “Only your word that anything you say is true or that you’ll tell me the truth. Promises aren’t worth all that much anymore.”

 

Harry shrugged helplessly, desperately wanting Regulus to believe him. “I’m a Gryffindor- isn’t keeping promises part of the chivalry bit?”

 

“I think not lying about your identity falls under that as well,” Regulus muttered.

 

“I’m not _lying,”_ said Harry. “Just...not telling _all_ of the truth. Yet.”

 

“Mmm,” said Regulus. “What are you going to tell the Potters? I’m sure they’ve noticed how much you resemble their son.”

 

Harry shrugged again, a small bubble of panic rising in his chest. “I don’t know- I _should_ lie to them, make up something or other, but I just-”

 

“-don’t want to,” finished Regulus for him.

 

“Don’t mention anything I said about Hogwarts or Gryffindor,” said Harry, not quite pleading but not too far off it either. “Please.”

 

Regulus’ mouth twisted again.

 

For a long moment he was quiet, eyes darting about.

 

“I-”

 

He looked at Harry again, and for a moment Regulus visibly wavered.

 

Then he let out a sigh, shoulders sagging slightly. “Oh, alright. I’ll hold you to that, though.”

 

Harry nearly smiled. “Wouldn’t expect anything less from a Slytherin.”

 

Regulus slid off the bed and said at a normal volume at last, “How did you know I was in Slytherin?”

 

Harry shrugged. “You said you weren’t in Gryffindor, and nothing really seemed to scream Hufflepuff. Ravenclaw was a maybe. Though then again, I don’t know you all that well.”

 

It was Regulus’ turn to nearly smile. “And I don’t know _you_ all that well- such are the times we live in.”

 

They were quiet again, not too unlike all the times they had been quiet in the cell when they were both too tired or distracted or busy moping in their own heads to say anything.

 

And during that quiet, Harry was suddenly very aware of the fact that Regulus was a Slytherin- and he’d never knowingly gotten along with one of those before- and technically about twenty years or so older than him and a bit- _a bit?-_ of an arsehole about Muggleborns. (And almost definitely on the path to becoming a Death Eater after school.)

 

And for all that they hardly knew each other, and Regulus had the potential to turn out to be only a slightly more tolerable version of Malfoy, Harry realised in that moment that even if they weren’t quite friends (and might never be) he still didn’t _want_ Regulus to become a Death Eater and get mixed up in Dark Magic and violence and then either die on the battlefield or get carted off to Azkaban.

 

It was a very big thing to suddenly realise, Harry thought, easily as big as all those things he foggily recalled realising under the light of the moon, next to a motorbike which couldn’t fly yet.

 

Regulus broke the silence, heading towards the door. “I’m going back to bed- my head’s killing me. See you later, Harry.”

 

Harry looked up, startled back into the moment. “Bye, Regulus.”

 

Regulus left the room. The door was still ajar.

 

Unable to help himself, Harry childishly called after the other boy, “That’s still a ridiculous name!”

 

“It’s still loads better than _Harry!”,_ Regulus shouted back. He nearly sounded like he was smiling.

 

Harry grinned to himself.

 

And then Harry was left alone with his thoughts again, brief good mood fading, and most probably in an even tighter spot than before.

 

Harry stared at his grandparents’ flowerbeds and wished very desperately for Hermione and Ron to have been there in that moment.

 

But Harry stayed alone, because wishing for impossible things rarely makes them more likely to happen.

 


	15. A Web of Not-Really-Lies and Half-Truths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Once again, a hundred thousand thank you's to all of you- I treasure every comment, every bookmark, every Kudo, every subscription, and every new hit. Thank you.
> 
> This chapter's out a good bit later than usual. Sorry about that; I'm sure you've got better things to be doing than waiting for me to update. I didn't forget, but I have been rather busy this week, and it took me a while to finish the final draft of this chapter. Some of the final editing might have happened within the last hour. So, sorry about that.
> 
> Hope you're all doing well, and that you enjoy this chapter, which was once even longer than it already is. A lot happens here. Probably should have planned that out better, but it is what it is now.
> 
> (Also, there's a small tangent about Quidditch. I let Ireland win the match. Call it a sudden bout of patriotism; happens to the best of us.)
> 
> This chapter: Harry speaks to the Potters (most of them) at long last, makes a decision, and the Potters have some guests. Oh, and Regulus turns up for a bit near the end.
> 
> 14/10- incidentally, chapter 1 of part 2, Outside The Frame, is set near the end of and after this chapter.

**25th July 1975**

Harry was more than slightly jumpy, come three o’clock that afternoon.

 

Jumpy enough that he had nearly dropped the _Daily Prophet_ Monty when had given to him just before lunch.

 

(Admittedly, this might well have also been because of Harry’s refusal to look Monty in the eyes the entire time, feeling nothing but guilt for what he was considering doing when the man smiled at him and told him to cheer up.)

 

Jumpy enough that he had been barely able to do more than nibble at the toast Effie had made him for said lunch.

 

(Things hadn’t really been helped by either Effie’s warm smile or her promise to drop in and check on him later.)

 

Jumpy enough that for all he had been allegedly reading the paper for the last hour, all Harry had managed to take in so far was that England had been knocked out of the qualifying round for the 1976 European Cup yesterday, effectively crushed by Ireland.

 

His stomach had done a funny little flip at the printed confirmation that he was in the past, that today was Friday the 25th of July, 1975, and it was nearly his birthday, even if he wasn’t going to be born for another five years.

 

It had also been very odd (and somewhat unpleasant) to realise that twenty days had passed since he had found himself in that strange room, uncertain as to how he had come to be there.

 

(Harry wasn’t quite so nervous that he didn’t notice how oddly wrong the sports headline had seemed, as if that wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He supposed that it was just some sort of patriotism flaring up for once. Happens to the best of us.)

 

He might, perhaps, have had reason to be so on edge.

 

Any minute now, a paranoid part of Harry whispered insistently, his grandparents were going to walk through the door and ask him about himself, and he was going to either try and convince them that he was their grandson from the future (and tell them that their son would be dead in six years’ time) or else lie straight to their faces like the lowest of the low, and hope for the best.

 

Or, the paranoid voice continued, maybe his father and Sirius- whom he had only heard distant echoes of along the corridor so far- would burst in and accuse him of being a liar and a fraud, tell him that Regulus had betrayed him (a very Slytherin thing to do, really, though he had hope in Regulus) and had told them all he knew and all he suspected.

 

God, maybe even any second now Fred and George were going to jump through the door and shout ‘April Fools!’, even though it wasn’t April, and reveal that this whole thing had been an awful, elaborate, joke and he was still safely in the present where things were pretty far from perfect, but at least he had Hermione and Ron and the Weasleys and a godfather who knew him and even Lupin- who was a teenager at this very moment, which seemed especially jarring to Harry; as jarring as the idea of McGonagall or Snape or _Dumbledore_ being teenagers.

 

But none of that had happened thus far, and Harry was instead sitting in silence, chewing a now-cold bit of toast (trying and failing to squash down the ball of panic and guilt in his chest as he did) and waiting for something to happen.

 

For _anything_ to happen.

 

(Because something would happen the minute he started to relax- he _knew_ that it would.)

 

He snatched up the book on his bedside table- Effie had brought it with the toast; Monty had picked it out. Harry settled down and started to read about the surprisingly interesting adventures of Lucille and Patrick McBride- a young Curse-breaking couple travelling the world in the 1910’s.

 

But Harry had never been a big reader and the book couldn’t keep his attention forever. He closed it about half-way through chapter five- in which the McBrides recounted the tale of their first meeting (Lucille had saved Patrick from a carnivorous Georgian tapestry in Switzerland)- in favour of staring out the still-open window for the umpteenth time.

 

The garden hadn’t changed in any significant way since the last time he had looked out the window.

 

Harry sighed irritably, shifted around in bed, and then turned around to reach for the glass of water on the table.

 

He stopped what he was doing rather abruptly- there was something very important, all of a sudden, about his wand and the strange necklace, both of which were on the table beside his water.

 

The echo of a memory floated to the forefront of Harry’s mind then, in much the same way that a tea bag floats to the surface of the boiling water before sinking back down into the murky, flavourful, depths.

 

Clothes, _Aunt Petunia would never need to know, Diminuendo,_ Hedwig, said the teabag.

 

Acting on an impulse, Harry grabbed his wand, put the necklace on the end of the bed and cast “Finite Incantatem!”

 

And in the blink of an eye, Harry’s scuffed school trunk was sitting before him- a broken shoelace dangling from one handle.

 

Harry grinned, but rubbed the back of his head, bemused.

 

He leaned forward and opened his trunk.

 

The Marauder’s Map, a handful of sweets, his photo album, Hedwig’s treats, and several letters from Ron, Hermione, and Sirius sat on top of a pile of clothes and his Firebolt.

 

All of Harry’s most treasured possessions were before him, which meant only one thing; that he had most definitely, without a trace of doubt left to hide behind, planned this little foray into the past.

 

What he didn’t understand was why. Why bother coming here and getting to know people who were going to die? Who were going to do terrible things in a war which hadn’t quite begun yet? Who were going to make mistakes and trust the wrong people and end up miserable and alone before Harry had even started Hogwarts?

 

Past Harry, as well as having incomprehensible motives, was a bit of an idiot, apparently, for leaving things as incriminating as the photo album and the Map at the very top of the trunk.

 

Harry hid them, as well as several letters, under the jumper Mrs Weasley had made him last Christmas. His eye was caught by something else then- something he didn’t remember even _owning,_ let alone putting into his trunk.

 

A battered copy of _Quidditch Through the Ages: 10_ _th_ _Anniversary Edition_ was tucked in under a layer of clothes.

 

Harry pulled the book out with the utmost care and opened it. His heart thudded painfully in his chest, then.

 

Scrawled on the first page was _Charlie Weasley, Sixth Year,_ then a neatly printed _Percy Weasley, Second Year,_ followed by familiarly big, loopy, letters which read, _Ron Weasley, Fourth Year._

 

Harry turned the page, ignoring the way his hands were starting to tremble ever so slightly.

 

There was a scrap of parchment sandwiched between page two and page three.

 

_25 th June ‘95_

 

_Harry,_

_Just remembered that you wanted to read this a while back- you said it wasn’t in the library when you went looking for it. So I owled home and asked Mum to send this to me. I thought you could do with something to cheer you up, after everything._

 

_Take good care of it- he says it’s mine now, but Percy would lose the plot if anything happened to it. (Not that he’d ever know, with how little Mum says she’s seen him this year.) Used to be Charlie’s, and Bill and Charlie have always been his favourites. You can give it back next time we see each other, which should be soon enough, really._

 

_See you soon,_

_Ron_

 

_PS: Never mind that 10 th Anniversary rubbish- it’s the same as the one at school, except it’s got stuff about the European and World Cup results in the back. Finals, semis, a few qualifiers, that sort of thing. Dunno why they bothered, to be honest. Not even Percy found it all that interesting, and he happily writes about cauldron bottoms for a living._

 

Harry found himself smiling at the note, before a huge pool of guilt settled in his stomach.

 

Did Ron and Hermione know he was gone? Were they worried?

 

And then Harry- memories stirred by all the talk of Quidditch- remembered the strange result in the _Prophet_ and decided to focus on that, rather than his tangled knot of feelings.

 

He flicked to the back of the book and, after much page-turning, found the section for the 1976 European Cup.

 

He found himself frowning down at the page.

 

According to _Quidditch Through the Ages,_ England and Ireland had never faced each other that year- not even in the qualifying matches. England had played Norway, then Germany, then Wales, and gone on to reach the quarter finals against Romania. Ireland had played Scotland and France, and then lost to Spain and not qualified that year.

 

Harry grabbed the paper and examined it again. It still said that England and Ireland had competed in Mullaghmore Stadium yesterday, and that England had lost by over seventy points. Ireland were to play Wales in Fishguard next week.

 

There was something very wrong going on here.

 

Supposing that neither the book nor the newspaper had been jinxed in some way, then that meant that Ron’s book (and all of the people Harry cared about) was from a present where England had made the quarter finals for the ‘76 Cup, but the _Daily Prophet_ Monty had gotten that morning (and so, all of the people around Harry right now) was from a present where England hadn’t even qualified, which in turn meant that _somehow-_ and disregarding everything Harry had learned about time travel in Third Year- Harry was in a different 1975 than the one that was supposed to have happened, if any of that made sense.

 

_Can I change anything here or does it work the same way as it did at home? Why did I come here? Nothing that happens here is worth a toss- it won’t make a difference to anyone at home. They’re all still going to go on as normal. So, why-_

 

Thankfully for Harry’s rather tenuous grip on the approaching fit of hysteria, his downward spiral and Deep Thoughts were interrupted by a well-timed rush of white feathers in through the open window.

 

Hedwig let out a rather self-satisfactory hoot and settled on Harry’s lap.

 

“Hedwig!”, exclaimed Harry, incredibly pleased to see a familiar face- and one that recognised him too.

 

Hedwig trilled at him until he stroked her feathers.

 

Well, that was that, then. Harry might have been stuck in the past which wasn’t _the_ past, but at least he wasn’t alone.

 

_(And oh, God, how was he going to get home? How had he even gotten here in the first place? It wasn’t a simple matter of waiting twenty years anymore- in twenty years he’d still be in the wrong place and-and-)_

 

Belatedly, Harry remembered that he was expecting something- _anything-_ to happen at any second.

 

Without jostling Hedwig too much, he closed Ron’s book- which now seemed far more dangerous than it had a few moments earlier- and hid it under another Weasley jumper.

 

He closed his trunk then, and carefully levitated it off his bed and onto the floor, wincing when he let it fall to soon and his Potions kit let out a rather worrying clink.

 

And then the horrible anticipation returned.

 

Harry smoothed down Hedwig’s feathers with slightly more care and attention than was strictly necessary in an attempt to keep from thinking too much about anything.

 

He was saved from the awful suspense by yet another distraction.

 

Somewhere very nearby, a Floo roared into life, and then a boy’s voice said, oddly clearly, “I thought this was James’ house, Sirius- shouldn’t he be the one lurking by the fireplace?”

 

“Well, usually you’d be right, Moony. But you see, in this case one needs brooding good looks in order to truly lurk anywhere without seeming overly creepy, and as such I have risen to the occasion.”

 

The boy laughed. It was a nice laugh, warm, though it ended rather suddenly, as if a door had been closed and had cut it off.

 

“I see the last month has only made you funnier, Padfoot.”

 

“I- _Remus Lupin, you little sh-”_

 

“Remus! There you are!”

 

“Hello, James. How’s your summer been?”

 

“It’s had a lot of... _moments,_ shall we say,” admitted James Potter.

 

Harry’s stomach twisted oddly as he heard his father’s voice for the second time in his memory.

 

James’ voice dropped down to a more conspiratorial level then, though Harry could still hear him as easily as if he was on the other side of the room.

 

“How’d you get on the other day?”

 

Remus sighed. “As well as you’d think- Mam wasn’t going to let me come until tomorrow, but Dad talked her out of it. Said I needed to get out more. I’m alright, just a bit sore.”

 

The Floo roared again, and then James said, “Pete! You made it!”

 

“’Lo everyone,” said a boy, and Harry’s heart sank.

 

That wasn’t-

 

“Still in one piece, then Peter?”, asked Remus.

 

“Apparently so, Remus. Mum’ll be pleased, at least.”

 

“Late as always I see, Pettigrew,” drawled Sirius, in a surprisingly good imitation of Snape. Or Malfoy. Or any of those arseholes really. It was a bit unnerving, to be honest.

 

“Impudent as always I see, Black,” replied Pettigrew- _motherfucking Pettigrew, that filthy traitor-_ with much more backbone than he’d shown either of the two times Harry had had the misfortune to meet his adult self.

 

They stayed quiet for half a beat, during which Harry ground his teeth furiously, before someone snorted.

 

Sirius said laughingly, “You looked that up, didn’t you?”

 

“Yeah,” admitted Pettigrew, an audible smile in his voice. “To be honest I just wanted to see if anyone else knew what impudent meant.”

 

Pettigrew- _fucking Pettigrew, that_ rat- sounded far too much like a joking friend rather than a snivelling coward or future betrayer whom no one had liked all that much anyway.

 

It made Harry feel distinctly uneasy, because it meant that he actually had to acknowledge that not only had Peter Pettigrew _been_ there, but that he’d been everyone’s friend, too.

 

He swallowed something sour.

 

“And what _does_ impudent mean, o bookworm ours?”, asked James over Pettigrew’s quiet ‘ha!’ and what might have been a high-five.

 

“ _Why_ does everyone always presume that I know these things?”, asked Remus, sounding slightly put upon.

 

“Because you _do,_ Moony,” said Sirius. “Now, share with the class. The meaning of ‘impudent’, if you will.”

 

Remus sighed. “It’s a very well-chosen word, Pete. Well done.”

 

He cleared his throat and when he spoke again, Harry could clearly hear the echoes of his future favourite DADA teacher, albeit if his old teacher had spent the entire time trying to hold back a laugh.

 

“Impudent, as I am sure Mr. Padfoot is well aware, means disrespectful in a way which implies that a certain measure of respect is owed and not being given. A good example of impudence would be any one of Mr. Prongs’ interactions with Professor McGonagall last year, approximately five minutes after the end of Friday afternoon’s Transfiguration class. A similar word, perhaps, would be irreverent, though they aren’t quite the same thing. Any questions?”

 

“Well done, Pete,” said Sirius quietly, as James said with faux solemnity, “None. Thank you Professor- my illiterate self shall be forever grateful for this opportunity to broaden my admittedly very narrow horizons.”

 

“Now, gentlemen,” interjected Sirius, “to business.”

 

“Indeed, Mr. Padfoot, indeed. C’mon, we can talk in my room- we can’t here.”

 

“Why not?”, asked Pettigrew, sounding rather reasonable and nowhere near as whiny or Death Eater-like as Harry would have liked.

 

“The walls around here are really thin,” said James. “One room’s really bad- you can hear nearly _everything._ Can’t remember which for the life of me.”

 

“Ah. How-”

 

“Mum says I got really upset when I was nearly seven because they wouldn’t let me have my presents early. I worked out what room they were in, and then I threw a wobbly-”

 

“Sounds like you haven’t changed much then, James,” interrupted Sirius. _“Ow._ Don’t bruise me- I’ll have to tell your parents.”

 

“ _Anyway,”_ continued James, “I got a bit upset, and did some accidental magic and made all the walls turn invisible. Dad fixed it, but he said that sound still travels a bit too well around here. We’ve got,” James’ voice dropped to what he apparently thought to be whispering volume, “ _house guests.”_

 

“Oh,” said Pettigrew. “Is that what you meant when you said that there were more kestrels in the nest?”

 

“ _Yes,”_ said James, sounding slightly offended. “Was it not obvious?”

 

Sirius snorted. _“Kestrels in the nest.”_

 

“James,” said Remus pleasantly, “you are genuinely useless sometimes, just so you know. Lead on, Sirius- I suppose the times are dark enough that we’ll have to fall back on you for leadership and coded messages.”

 

“As well you should,” sniffed Sirius.

 

They left whatever room they were in then with a great deal of noise- James making some sort of disparaging remark about Sirius’ leadership abilities, and Sirius loudly engaging Pettigrew in a conversation about Flobberworms, of all things.

 

They passed Harry’s door, paying it no mind. He saw hardly anything, but what he did see made his heart contract horribly.

 

There was Sirius, proud and smirking about something or other, and there was Pettigrew at his side, noticeably shorter and seeming more like an equal- a _friend-_ than a hateful traitor. Remus was slightly behind them, worryingly pale but still laughing quietly at something that James next to him had said- James still looking like Harry’s reflection.

 

And then they were further down the corridor, and a door opened and then closed, and then Harry couldn’t hear them at all.

 

What occurred to Harry then- with all the gentleness of a slap in the face- as he sat alone in the sudden quiet was how startlingly _young_ they had seemed- how young and innocent and _strange._ Because for all that they had their names and faces and maybe acted like them at times, the four teenagers who had just made their way down the hall like an especially chatty herd of elephants were complete strangers to Harry, not at all the people that he knew.

 

They weren’t Harry’s godfather with his haunted gaze and tightly-wound laughter.

 

They weren’t Harry’s old teacher with his greying hair and worry lines and air of quiet, lonely, misery.

 

They weren’t that traitorous scumbag who had betrayed Harry’s parents to Voldemort and sent an innocent man to Azkaban and then had the _nerve_ to beg Harry for his life.

 

And they most definitely were not Harry’s brave and noble father, who sometimes hung over Harry like a spectre of sacrifice who had had his face first, been a Gryffindor first, played Quidditch first, done any number of things- be they big or small- first.

 

They were none of those things yet, and they might never be, in this past which wasn’t _the_ past.

 

They were just four loud, laughing, strangers.

 

And Harry found himself thinking about this, and about Regulus-the-possible-future-Death-Eater, and about Cedric Diggory who hadn’t deserved to die at all, let alone as nothing more than the _spare,_ and a great big swell of emotion filled Harry’s chest and when it burst all of a sudden, he found himself thinking, _fuck that. Fuck that and fuck the continuous time-loop- I’ll fix it all if it kills me._

 

And a great deal of tension which he hadn’t realised was there eased from Harry’s shoulders, and he relaxed back against the pillows, still stroking Hedwig’s feathers, which would probably never need to be smoothed down ever again at this rate.

 

On closer inspection, Hedwig- who had been rather still and quiet for the last while- was fast asleep in Harry’s lap, which was to be expected seeing as it was day-time and she was an owl.

 

It was at this moment that there was a knock at the door, and in walked Harry’s sort-of-grandparents, because that was how these things worked.

 

“Hello, Harry,” said Effie.

 

Harry managed a smile. “Hello.”

 

“How’re you feeling?”, asked Monty.

 

Here it was. No putting it off any longer.

 

“Not too bad,” said Harry with half a shrug. “Thanks for the paper and the book. Oh, and the toast too.”

 

“Not a problem,” dismissed Effie. “She’s lovely,” she said, gesturing at Hedwig.

 

Harry smiled what was probably the realest smile he’d smiled in a while. “Thanks. Her name’s Hedwig- I’ve had her since I was eleven. Wasn’t expecting her to find me so soon.”

 

“Owls are remarkably intelligent creatures,” said Monty. “Far more intelligent than we give them credit for- did you know that in 1890, post owls became the backbone of-”

 

“Darling,” said Effie, meaningfully.

 

“Oh, yes. Right. Harry, do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”

 

“No, no, go on.”

 

“Fantastic!”, beamed Monty, and then Effie Conjured two comfortable red armchairs and the Potters sat down.

 

For a moment, they all sat there in silence, observing and considering each other.

 

And Harry looked at them, those two kindly, concerned, mildly suspicious people and he could see shards of his own reflection in them like he never could in his aunt or cousin.

 

Fleamont Potter had his glasses, his eyebrows, his jaw- even the hair that wouldn’t lie flat, though it was a mostly grey colour now, with only the odd bit of brown here and there.

 

Was (were) Euphemia (and James) where he got his stature from?

 

(Or was it just another one of those things like never asking questions and sleeping under the stairs and making breakfasts that no one was ever grateful for?)

 

(Or, on a less depressing note, maybe his mum wasn’t all that tall.)

 

Euphemia Potter was certainly the source of his thin face and dark hair, and maybe something familiar about the set of his mouth, even if her mouth wasn’t quite the same.

 

Harry- having not actually seen James up close yet- wondered how much James had gotten from each parent that hadn’t gone to Harry too.

 

Did James have his mother’s warm hazel eyes, or his father’s kindly blue ones? Did James have his father’s broad nose or his mother’s long, narrow, one? Was James Ravenclaw bright and distracted like his father or Slytherin sharp and observant like his mother?

 

(Hadn’t all of the Potters been Gryffindors?)

 

“Harry,” started Effie, looking like she might have been considering grabbing his free hand. Harry wasn’t sure if he wanted her to or not. It seemed like a very kindly grandmother sort of thing to do, or maybe something Mrs Weasley might have done.

 

“Harry, is there anyone we can write to- to let them know that you’re alright? Surely your family must be very worried by now.”

 

There was a creak from somewhere outside, and Harry was once again reminded of the thinness of the walls. He tried to ignore it.

 

“Er, no,” said Harry, truthfully. “I’ve only got my aunt and uncle, and I doubt they’ve missed me.”

 

“Ah. Your parents-”

 

“-died when I was a baby,” said Harry.

 

“Oh, _dear,”_ said Effie, looking genuinely upset on his behalf. There was a solemn sadness to Monty’s features now, too.

 

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s alright- I don’t remember them at all. So I grew up with my mum’s sister, and her family. My mum was Muggleborn, so they’re Muggles. We, er, don’t get on all that well.”

 

There was something akin to understanding in Monty’s eyes, and Harry remembered all of a sudden that Sirius had recently run away from home and run _here._

 

“What about your father’s family?”, asked Effie. “Do you have any relatives there we could let know that you’re here?”

 

Harry looked away, unable to face his grandparents and their thrice-damned kind, understanding, faces.

 

How the _fuck_ was he supposed to lie to these people?

 

“It’s, er, complicated,” said Harry, which wasn’t a lie. “They don’t know about me, and I don’t think they’d want to know.”

 

He chanced looking back up at them. Monty and Effie were looking at each other, some unreadable expression on their faces.

 

Monty was the one to glance away, focusing back on Harry. “So there really is no one we can write to?”

 

Harry shook his head. “Sorry.”

 

“It’s hardly your fault, dear,” said Effie, albeit somewhat distractedly.

 

“Harry,” said Monty, leaning forward slightly in his seat. “I have some old friends in the DMLE- if you wouldn’t mind- we could start some sort of proceedings- it’ll take some time, of course, and it would probably be best if we could get the Aurors as well, but they’re always a difficult crowd- what do you think?”

 

Harry blinked. “I’m sorry?”

 

Effie smiled gently at him. “I think what my dearest husband is trying to say is that we’d like to try to bring those... _people_ to justice. We can easily get a case before the DMLE, and possibly the Wizengamot, though it would be well into next year before anything really came of it. Of course, we wouldn’t start anything without the say from you or Regulus; we wouldn’t want to put you in an awkward position.”

 

“Oh. Well, er, if Regulus doesn’t mind, then yeah, of course,” said Harry, mind drifting back once again to the other people downstairs, who he’d never even spoken to. “I don’t know how much help I’d be, though. I really don’t know much of anything.”

 

Monty waved him off. “You wouldn’t have to give any sort of statements for another while, and by then who knows how much of your memory might have returned? And I’m sure the investigators would be glad for even the smallest of things.”

 

Harry nodded. “Alright then. Yeah. Sounds good.”

 

There was a brief lull in the conversation then, during which Harry’s grandparents exchanged another meaningful look, and Harry felt slightly uncomfortable.

 

Effie turned to him then. “Harry, we’re not about to throw you out, but we were wondering, _is_ there anywhere you’d _like_ to go, if not back to your relatives? Any friends, perhaps?”

 

Harry bit his lip. “I-no. My friends are all- they’re all-” _twenty years into another future_ “-gone. I’m never going to- they’re gone.”

 

To his utmost dismay, Harry found that there was now something rather tight in his throat, all of a sudden. It was true, he realised then. They _were_ gone, all of them. Unless Harry ever managed to get home again- and seeing as he had no idea how he’d gotten here in the first place, that seemed rather unlikely- he was never going to see any of his friends or loved ones as he knew them ever again. Those people would never exist here. Harry was alone.

 

His eyes felt distinctly warm. Harry tried to will the traitorous water back into his skull. He wasn’t entirely successful.

 

Effie looked positively stricken. Monty looked as if he had just watched a puppy be absolutely flattened by a car.

 

“Oh, _Harry,”_ said Effie, reminding him strongly of Hermione which wasn’t very conducive to the Not Crying.

 

The insides of his nose had started to liquefy. Harry tried to discreetly sniff it back into place, one hand still stroking Hedwig’s feathers.

 

“I’m sorry Harry,” said Monty, looking incredibly sincere, and Harry’s heart clenched at the mere _idea_ of lying to this man.

 

“It’s alright,” he said thickly, focusing his gaze on the desk by the door again. The desk blurred in and out of clarity, despite the fact that he was wearing his glasses this time.

 

“What we were going to say,” said Effie, “was that if there was nowhere else you’d rather be, you could stay here for the summer; we’ve got the room.”

 

“I don’t want to be a bother,” croaked Harry, before he made the mistake of glancing down at Hedwig in his lap. The welling tears finally spilled over. He wiped at them roughly, embarrassed and irritated.

 

Monty wordlessly produced a handkerchief and handed it to him. Harry thanked him without looking him in the eye.

 

“It really wouldn’t be a problem, dear,” said Effie. “The house is terribly quiet sometimes anyway- it’s just James and Sirius now; our boys. Their friends are staying over for the weekend, but after that it’ll be very empty again. The boys are always up to who knows what in their rooms, or outside, and I’m sure Regulus will want to go...home, soon enough.”

 

“Alright,” said Harry, still scrubbing at his face. “If you’re sure.”

 

“Yes,” said his grandparents in unison. It was a strange mixture of unnerving and heart-warming.

 

They were quiet again, whilst Harry finally composed himself and handed Monty back his rather soggy and crumpled handkerchief.

 

“Is this your trunk?”, asked Monty, eventually.

 

“Yeah,” said Harry, grateful for the change in topic. “I’ve had it for years- it was shrunken down and put on a shoelace before- I’d completely forgotten. I’ve got all my important stuff in it- all my books and things.”

 

“ _Oh,_ yes,” said Effie then, sitting up straighter in her chair. “That reminds me- I hate to pry dear, but are you in Hogwarts? Will you be going back in September?”

 

Harry shifted uncomfortably, and very carefully did not look at either of his grandparents.

 

“I’ve been to school- I know a load of spells and stuff- and I’ve got all the books up to the end of Fourth Year and some robes, too. I just don’t think I’m on the Hogwarts register-thing. I’ve, er, never been.”

 

Harry swallowed roughly, cheeks feeling warm. He felt about as important as an ant in that moment.

 

_You’re lying to them, after everything they’ve done for you? How does that make you any better than any of those pricks at school?_

 

“Would you like to?”, asked Monty, pulling Harry from the mental pit he was starting to sink into. “Attend, that is. We can find a way around tuition- you and James are- and my aunt never married, but- and supplies shouldn’t be a problem.”

 

Harry bit his lip. The thought of going back to Hogwarts without any of the people he knew and cared about was not a pleasant one. But what else was he going to do? He couldn’t mooch off of the Potters’ generosity for the rest of time either.

 

(There was a part of Harry which was absolutely delighted at the idea- _think about your dad,_ it whispered, _your mum, Sirius, you could meet them all properly this way. And maybe one day you could tell them the truth, and they’d be so pr-_ )

 

“Yeah,” said Harry, looking up. “I’d like that, if it’s alright.”

 

“Oh, of course dear,” beamed Effie. Harry couldn’t help but smile back at her. If it was possible, she looked even more pleased.

 

“It’s decided then,” said Effie, firmly. “Harry, you may stay here as long as you wish- I’ll not have you living alone in the Muggle world or wherever the Ministry sees fit; it never seems to work out for anyone. We’ll write Hogwarts tonight, and see about getting you enrolled- there are standardised tests of course, though you seem a bright sort. I’m sure you’ll make it into- what year should you be in, dear?”

 

Harry blinked away the dampness in his eyes which was trying to make an unwanted reappearance- he had _lied_ to them, and they _believed_ him, and they were so _kind_ to him, and she had called him _dear_ like she cared- and said, “Fifth. I’m going to be fifteen on Thursday.”

 

“Goodness, are you really?”, exclaimed Monty. “We’ll have to get you a cake- and a card- and perhaps the boys could come over for Quidditch-”

 

Effie laughed. It was a mirthful sound, full of life, and it seemed to erase some of the lines from her face- a lot of which were laughter-lines, Harry noticed.

 

“Yes, darling, of course. But do remember that Peter and Remus don’t like to play, yes?”

 

“Oh, yes. You’re right as always, Effie. I’m sure we’ll work something out,” finished Monty bracingly.

 

Harry found himself smiling slightly at the man’s enthusiasm and at just how in love the Potters were. A small bit of jealousy flared up in his chest- James had gotten to grow up with two people who were so obviously still mad about each other, and who cared about him enough to remember his friends’ names and their likes and dislikes. He carefully squashed the feeling.

 

“Do you feel up to joining us for dinner, Harry?”, asked Monty, looking as if he wanted the answer to be ‘yes’ very much. “We’ll ask Regulus as well- it’ll be us, the two of you, James and Sirius and their friends Remus and Peter- I’m sure you’ll all get on very well- they’re very friendly. True Gryffindors.”

 

Harry smiled, and despite the indescribable mix of emotions which washed over him at the thought of it, said, “Yeah- can’t wait.”

 

Effie looked rather pleased by this turn of events as well. “Excellent! We’re having steak tonight- Remus and Sirius like it. Ah, I hate to ask, but do you have any clothes other than-”, she indicated the clothes still folded on the table. The very Muggle, very big, and rather shabby clothes.

 

Harry felt his cheeks warm up. “A few jumpers and another t-shirt. Maybe another pair of jeans- I can’t remember what I packed- it’s all still blurry. I’ve only just remembered that I shrank the trunk at all.”

 

“Not to worry,” said Effie cheerfully, as Monty rose to his feet and offered her his hand. She took it and stood rather gracefully. “I’ll ask James if he has some you can borrow- I think most of what Sirius has been wearing this week belongs to both of them at this point.”

 

Monty Vanished the chairs as Harry stuttered his thanks. Effie waved him off with another ‘Not a problem’ before Monty promised to call him for dinner.

 

The Potters left him in peace then, and Harry’s racing heart finally started to slow- he’d done it. He’d survived the questioning he’d been dreading all afternoon. The Potters had agreed to shelter him _and_ he’d be going back to Hogwarts in September. He was going to save some lives and make a difference even if it killed him- no excuses now.

 

That still didn’t settle the sick feeling in his stomach.

 

Harry didn’t think anything could really do that.

There was a knock at the door, and Harry startled so badly that he woke Hedwig up. She let out a reproachful hoot and flew over to perch on the edge of the desk with her head under her wing.

 

The door was pushed open, and in the door-way stood Regulus, still in pyjamas and looking more than slightly confused.

 

“Did you just _hoot_ at me?”

 

Harry blinked and before he could stop it, a laugh bubbled up out of him. He decided to blame it on the stress of the last while, the absurdity of his situation, and the slightly hysterical, very guilty, knot in his stomach.

 

When he looked back at Regulus, mirth still blurring his vision slightly, he thought that he might have been smiling a bit, in a rather bemused sort of way.

 

Harry shook his head, took a deep breath, and pulled himself back together.

 

He pointed at Hedwig. “Hedwig hooted- I jumped when you knocked and woke her up.”

 

“Ah,” said Regulus, coming further into the room without waiting for permission this time. He stopped next to the table and studied Hedwig for a minute. “She’s beautiful.”

 

“I know,” said Harry, trying not to boast about his _owl_ of all things. “Wicked smart, too. I got her as a present when I turned eleven.”

 

“Very traditional,” remarked Regulus.

 

“Is it? I just wanted a pet.”

 

Regulus hovered by the end of the bed, starting to look awkward again.

 

“You can sit down on it, if you want,” offered Harry. “There were chairs earlier, but...”

 

Regulus sat down gingerly, facing Harry. His legs dangled off of the side, toes brushing the floor.

 

There was another painful silence, which was made only slightly less painful than before by the fact that Harry was now able to look straight at his conversation partner without feeling like he might spontaneously combust from the sheer _awkwardness_ of it.

 

The silence stretched on. And on.

 

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”, exploded Harry. “Are you _always_ this awkward? I thought Slytherins were supposed to be composed.”

 

Regulus looked rather offended. “It’s been a very stressful last few days!”

 

Harry snorted. “I _know._ ”

 

“I overheard some of your little whatever that was with the Potters,” said Regulus suddenly.

 

Harry narrowed his eyes at him. “I _thought_ that was a suspicious creak.”

 

Regulus shrugged elegantly, not looking very sorry. “I’m a Slytherin, as you have pointed out before. I’m fairly sure that the Hat said something about cunning and ruthlessness- besides, I effectively prevented Sirius and the others from listening in. I doubt you’d want them to know some things, and they wouldn’t want _me_ to know that they listen to other people’s conversations. Only Slytherins are supposed to do that, apparently.”

 

Harry avoided Regulus’ gaze when he admitted, “I might have been known to have overheard a thing or two in my time- accidentally, of course.”

 

“Of course”, echoed Regulus.

 

“You were quite good at not telling them anything,” Regulus pointed out. “Worryingly so- I thought you were going to cry at one point. Though they probably still have their suspicions.”

 

Harry shifted uncomfortably and started studying the backs of his hands again. “I feel _terrible_ by the way.”

 

“I’m sure you do,” Regulus said softly. “Do you know them?”

 

Harry didn’t look up from the small freckle-mole thing on the back of his right hand. “Not personally,” he whispered. “Never got the chance.”

 

He looked Regulus in the eye then and said in the firmest whisper he could, “We’re _not_ talking about this right now- if you could hear so much from the hall with the door _closed-”_

 

“Yes, yes,” said Regulus with a dismissive hand-wave. “I’m not an idiot.”

 

“Are you coming to dinner?”

 

Regulus looked away, discomfort on his face. “I suppose I’ll have to- I might have to leave half-way through, though. A sudden attack of my previously unmentioned allergies, perhaps. Sirius on his own is bad enough, but a meal where he’ll be egged on by his friends?”

 

Regulus shuddered theatrically. Harry couldn’t help but smile.

 

It felt almost like having a friend.

 

It was at this point that Harry finally met someone other than Regulus or his grandparents.

 

A lanky brown-haired boy walked past the open bedroom door, cast a half-curious glance inside, and then stopped dead in his tracks.

 

“What’re you two doing in here?,” he asked, frowning slightly. “I just left-oh. Oh. Not-not who I thought you were. Ah. Oops?”

 

 _Holy fucking shit,_ thought Harry rather vehemently, because currently standing in the doorway was _Remus fucking Lupin,_ all of fifteen and still gangly-looking.

 

_Sweet Christ, his voice probably still breaks._

 

The silence stretched on for a moment, before Remus frowned slightly and said, “Regulus, isn’t it? You’re Slytherin’s Seeker.”

 

Harry saw Regulus nod out of the corner of his vision. He couldn’t quite tear his gaze from his now teenaged DADA teacher. There was something fundamentally wrong about it.

 

“You’re Lupin, aren’t you?,”asked Regulus. “I can’t quite recall your first name. Sorry.”

 

Remus waved it off. “It’s alright,” he said .“Remus, incidentally. My name is Remus.”

 

Regulus nodded again.

 

And then Harry made eye contact with Remus Lupin and it was _so fucking weird._

 

Remus frowned slightly again. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking a little bit embarrassed, “but I’m afraid that I don’t know your name,”

 

Harry blinked. “Oh, uh, Harry. I’m Harry.”

 

Remus smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

 

Harry smiled weakly, and started twisting the bedsheets in his hands.

 

“You too,” he said, still unable to look away.

 

There was a rather awkward silence then.

 

Remus shifted in the doorway, not meeting anyone’s eye. He looked a bit uncomfortable.

 

The silence continued for another minute or two, before Remus Lupin flashed a smile and stepped back quickly. “I’ll just be off, then- nice meeting you! Bye!”

 

And then Remus Lupin all but sprinted away, going down the hall and possibly a flight of stairs.

 

Harry blinked again.

 

“Well, _that_ happened,” he said, still staring at the doorway.

 

Regulus snorted. “Still looking forward to dinner?”

 

Harry sighed, though found a small smile still tugging at his lips. “I just might develop some allergies myself, at this rate.”

 

Regulus smiled, but didn’t say anything.

 

It was nice.


	16. All Things Have Their Time (This Isn't It)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! The amount of positive attention this fic is getting never ceases to amaze me, and it's an absolutely amazing feeling every time I log on and see how much other people are enjoying the little day-dream that got stuck in my head one day at the start of the summer. So thank you for that. All of you.
> 
> At long last, we have The Dinner. And a return to Regulus' pov. And oh, look: it's James Potter.
> 
> (I'm so sorry about all the Quidditch- this is the last of it for a while, I promise; it's just a good, neutral-ish, topic of coversation. (And it's nice to get to mention my own country for once, though this is the end of that now, too. You can relax.))
> 
> (Also this chapter might feel a little bit rushed in places. Let's pretend that it was an artistic choice to show the passing of time and not me not having enough time to fix all of this chapter, just most of it.)
> 
> Happy reading!

**25th-28th July 1975**

Dinner was going about as well as Regulus had thought it would.

 

There he was, sitting in _James Potter_ of all people’s house, wearing a borrowed navy robe which was ever-so-slightly too short despite Mr Potter’s best attempts at charming the fabric.

 

(Mr Potter insisted on being called Monty, just as Mrs Potter insisted on being called Effie. Regulus couldn’t quite bring himself to do either of those things.)

 

So, yes. _James Potter’s_ house. _James Potter’s_ robe. And Sirius glancing over and smirking at him every time Regulus looked in his general direction, making the ‘I know something you don’t, and it’s _hilarious’_ face, before leaning in to whisper something to one of his friends.

 

Matters most decidedly had not been helped when they had all first entered the dining room (from different doors, for double the drama, knowing Sirius) and everyone had come to a screeching halt for a moment, to indulge in some quality Astonished Staring.

 

Torture of the highest degree, Regulus thought, second only to listening to Grandfather Arcturus wax philosophical about what exactly made a ‘proper’ relationship, because Grandfather Arcturus had stopped keeping up with the news around 1902, and as such was convinced that ‘a fruitless marriage’ and ‘marrying below one’s station’ (as Father would have put it) were still illegal, rather than simply heavily discouraged for certain persons (read: Sirius once upon a time, and now Regulus seeing as Sirius had fucked off for once and for all) and that the current Dark Lord was off in Wallachia, doing who knew what.

 

All of this in French, mind, because the current Lord Black was from _that_ side of the family, and had never bothered learning English, which was why Father was actually Lord Black in all but name, and also why Regulus sometimes stopped paying attention for half a moment and ended up missing the moment when ranting about marriage became fond recollections of the Pont-Neuf Skirmish of 1875, and as such was always confused as to how arson related to the marriage laws of the 19th century.

 

The closest thing to a bright spot in this hell, Regulus decided, was Harry, who was currently on his left.

 

Harry wasn’t really all that much of a bright spot, though, because he still looked unnervingly like James Potter and was wearing a borrowed t-shirt and jeans and was only looking up from his plate in order to answer questions or to stare at James Potter and his friends with what looked like an odd mixture of fondness, horror, and wistfulness.

 

Regulus wasn’t planning on trying to decode that any time soon. (Which meant that for his own sake, he was going to Not Think about things for the rest of the evening but would remember all of this for later.)

 

For what it was worth (and Regulus wasn’t sure exactly how much it _was_ worth) James Potter and his friends kept on staring back with an odd mixture of confusion, possible horror, and what just might have been appraisal.

 

(Not Thinking about it. Not Thinking about it.)

 

Sirius murmured something then which made James Potter snort. Pettigrew (technically beside Regulus but leaned far enough away that he was practically at the end of the table) let out a quiet laugh, and then Lupin elbowed Sirius in the ribs, likely out of a sense of obligation for being the one within elbowing range rather than actual offence, seeing as he was smiling slightly.

 

“ _Ow,_ Moony! You know, if this level of physical violence keeps up, I just might have to take my leave of all of you and pursue my ventures elsewhere,” said Sirius, more audibly than anything else he had said thus far.

 

“Like anyone else would take you,” muttered Regulus.

 

Harry snorted.

 

Sirius’ head snapped over to them. “I sense mockery, Reg. I expected more from you ingrates.”

 

Regulus raised an eyebrow at him- something he had taught himself to do at the age of ten in the quiet of his room, after Sirius had gone away to school for the first time.

 

“That bright-eyed idealism is really going to lead you astray one of these days, Sirius,” said Regulus. “It really _is_ a wonder you weren’t a Hufflepuff, what with all this heart-on-sleeve sentimentalism.”

 

Pettigrew made a slightly choked noise.

 

Sirius narrowed his eyes at Regulus but didn’t say anything in response, no doubt very aware of the watchful eye Mr and Mrs Potter had on him.

 

Lupin, probably the most tolerable of Sirius’ friends even if he was dreadfully awkward and _ridiculously_ indulgent, smirked down at his mashed potatoes.

 

(And had Lupin  _sniffed_ them, earlier? Actually, honestly,  _sniffed_ them? Or was Regulus (finally, after nearly a decade and a half of exposure to Sirius) starting to crack?)

 

(Something else to Not Think about right now, he decided.)

 

“Pass the carrots there, Pete,” said James Potter, and then Regulus made the mistake of glancing over at first Pettigrew, already moving to oblige, and then James Potter himself.

 

And of course if he was going to look at James Potter, then he was going to find his gaze drawn to Harry again, wasn’t he?

 

There was something fundamentally wrong somehow, about seeing James Potter and Harry possibly Potter so close together, as if one of their reflections had peeled away from the mirror into the living world, á la _Cautionary Tales for the Curious Young Witch or Wizard, Second Edition, 1911._

 

(And hadn’t that been a fun week of nightmares ten years ago?)

 

There were  _some_ noticeable differences, thank Circe.

 

James Potter seemed to take up much more space than he actually did, and was all waving hands and smug looks. He had Mrs Potter’s long nose and hazel eyes, and Mr Potter’s wide, grinning, mouth.

Harry, on the other hand, was much more considerate when it came to giving other people room, and seemingly wasn’t possessed by the same constant thrum of energy. And thank God and Merlin and whoever else for that. He had surprisingly green eyes, a shorter, slightly up-turned, nose, and  _that scar,_ which peeked out intermittently from behind his fringe.

 

(Yet another thing for the Not Thinking About It Right Now list. At this rate Regulus was going to need a notebook.)

 

And Harry wasn’t anywhere near as  _loud._

 

Pettigrew said something to James Potter then, who let out a bright, delighted, laugh, looked slightly abashed under his mother’s admonishing stare, and then pulled a face at Sirius, who smirked and leaned over to whisper to a thoroughly amused-looking Lupin.

 

The Potters were holding each other’s free hand, then, and exchanging soft words- warm looks on their faces- and the Potters’ dining room seemed big and bright and full of laughter, and Regulus marvelled at it to himself- marvelled at what Sirius had abandoned him for.

 

It really was startlingly unlike how a dinner at home would go- especially if they had guests.

 

Father would be at the head of the table, obviously, and Mother either on his right or at the other end. Then Sirius would sit on Father’s left or his unoccupied right, and Regulus would always sit opposite Sirius and beside Aunt Lucretia , which was always just _wonderful,_ thanks.

 

There would be the obligatory questions about school and recent births, deaths, and marriages, and the polite, restrained, laughter at an anecdote which had probably been trotted out for the fifth time this year and was really starting to get old, Aunt Druella.

 

And that would be it. No more talking, no laughter, and limited eye-contact. And absolutely no trying to communicate through facial expressions, blinks, or notes hidden in napkins, because if Mother ever caught you at it, she’d hex you on the spot (under the table, of course), and then there would be Words, afterwards.

 

There would be none of... _this._

 

It was like he was watching a picture, taken long before he had been born, Regulus thought distantly. Or perhaps as if he was regarding them all from the other side of a pane of glass; like he wasn’t even there at all.

 

A cold feeling swept through him. He probably could have faded right out of existence then and there, and no one would have noticed.

 

_I don’t belong here._

 

“How’re your previously unmentioned allergies?”, asked someone quietly from beside him.

 

Regulus turned his head, and Harry was looking at him, a sort of smile playing around his lips.

 

“I think that they might be about to make a sudden- regrettable- appearance,” said Regulus, solemnly.

 

Harry’s sort of smile brightened into a small grin. He looked very like and unlike James Potter then- perhaps if James Potter had been watered down into something a bit easier to swallow.

 

“How terrible,” said Harry, trying (and failing) to sound serious. “Would some Quidditch help, d’you think? I think it might help my, er, _headache._ ”

 

Regulus smiled. “That just might be medical break-through, you know. I’d write to the _Healer’s Herald,_ if I was you.”

 

A sudden spike of competitiveness flared up then, and Regulus found himself smirking just a little bit (and feeling horribly like Sirius as he did) and saying, “It would probably be best if you didn’t play me, though. You’d probably need to talk to the Hufflepuff over there for grief-counselling afterwards.”

 

Harry looked a funny mixture of amused and indignant. “Is that right? I’ve been a Seeker longer than you have; we’ll see how you’re feeling after you get crushed on the pitch next year.”

 

“Oh, really?”

 

_You’re being absolutely ridiculous, Regulus Black._

 

“Really.”

 

They stared each other down for a moment, before someone cracked and then Regulus found himself trying desperately not to snort into his dinner, Harry snickering into his hand beside him.

 

(Mother and Father would have been absolutely aghast at the entire thing- _that’s not_ proper, _Regulus._ )

 

Regulus seemed to be laughing a lot more lately, he’d noticed. He decided to blame it on stress and over-exposure to Gryffindors.

 

They both exchanged one last mirthful look- united as allies against their captors before and loud strangers now- and then Regulus turned back to his dinner.

 

There was a lull in the conversation, and then James Potter leaned around in his seat in a way which would have given Father hives, and caught Harry’s eye and asked, only slightly stiffly, “Do you like Quidditch, Harry?”

 

Harry blinked. “Yeah- did you hear about the game yesterday?”

 

James Potter let out an anguished sound. “I thought we were going to be through this year for sure- and we lost to _Ireland._ We annihilated them last time!”

 

Harry smiled.

 

“To be fair,” said Lupin sounding carefully casual, “they _do_ have O’Halloran and Kevin Ryan- he and Davy Ryan are phenomenal.”

 

James Potter sighed dramatically. “I _know._ ”

 

“Where _did_ they come from?”, wondered Pettigrew. “They weren’t on the team for the World Cup qualifiers _or_ the last European Cup.”

 

“O’Halloran is signed with the Mullaghmore Manticores, and Kevin Ryan’s actually Davy Ryan’s cousin, apparently. But everyone knows about Davy because he plays for Kenmare but Kevin’s been on North Tipperary’s starting line-up for two years now.”

 

Sirius turned to regard Lupin with a look of deep bafflement on his face. “ _How_ do you know all that? You don’t even _like_ Quidditch that much.”

 

Lupin shrugged. “Dad follows the Irish League- I think one of his mates from school made the Augureys right after graduating and now it’s just a habit.”

 

“Oh. Well, you’d better give them hell next week, Moony. We’re counting on you- Scotland got knocked out earlier, remember? _Portugal,_ of all places.”

 

Lupin sighed, and sounded rather put-upon when he said, “Yes, Sirius- _I,_ personally, will play for Wales next week- just for you.”

 

The small grin on his face rather ruined the effect.

 

“I know you will, Moony- that’s why you’re my favourite Welshman.”

 

“Technically, only Mam’s-”

 

“Shh, don’t ruin it.”

 

“Is there anything to ruin?”, wondered Harry, so quietly that only Regulus heard.

 

Regulus resisted the urge to snort- he had manners, after all.

 

Once again, James Potter leaned around in his seat to catch Harry’s eye. Regulus caught a glimpse of something-or-other on his face before he managed to smooth it over. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it was a touch more shrewd than anything he had ever expected to see from James Potter.

 

“You’re coming into our year at school, aren’t you?”

 

Regulus didn’t miss how Effie Potter looked up from her dinner at this exact moment, to glance between her son and Harry.

 

Harry stiffened slightly. “Yeah.”

 

“Where’re you transferring from, then?”

 

_Oh, shit,_ thought Regulus, because only an idiot wouldn’t notice how tight Harry’s grip had suddenly gotten on his fork, or the brief flicker of pure panic in his eyes.

 

Harry busied himself with cutting his steak then. He didn’t look at anyone when he answered, “ My friend Ron’s mum taught me- us. All of us. Me and Ron and Hermione and the rest of them.”

 

“Oh, cool,” said James Potter, not sounding as if he thought it was all that cool. “What branch school was that under, then?”

 

“Er-”

 

Regulus glanced at Harry, and found that Harry was already looking at him, eyes screaming for help.

 

Regulus decided to assist. Let that be his act of charity for the year.

 

He sighed, as if this was not the first time he had had to say this, and would probably not be the last, either. “Green Tern, Harry. The south-western branch school is technically called Green Tern.”

 

“Oh, right,” said Harry, albeit somewhat weakly. “Thanks Regulus- I never can remember.”

 

He took a long drink then, and Regulus mentally patted himself on the back for a job well done.

 

James Potter did not look especially satisfied, and leaned forward in his seat, frowning slightly.

 

Mr Potter cleared his throat and James Potter sat back again.

 

And then the conversation shifted again,  and Regulus found himself talking about the Fourth Year Potions course with Fleamont Potter- James Potter chipping in every now and then from the other end of the table- whilst Harry,  Lupin, and Pettigrew took it in turns to correct Sirius’ terminology as he started talking about- Muggle studies, was it? Or that bloody bike?  _Please don’t be both._

 

Euphemia Potter somehow managed to hold a conversation with her son about the state of the front garden- and how what had happened to the back garden was rather entirely his fault- even with him breaking off to agree with his father every few sentences.

 

It was loud, there was no doubt about it.

 

It was loud and messy and manners were only half-way obeyed if they were even acknowledged at all. Mother and Father most definitely would not have approved- would have thought about disowning Regulus for even _thinking_ about such carry-on.

 

But the July sunshine painted the Potters’ dining room golden, and there was an oddly content feeling in Regulus’ chest, despite the abundance of Gryffindors, and even though he wasn’t entirely sure if this was an alright way to be carrying on, Regulus couldn’t help but feel that this was a very good corner of the world to be in right now.

 

All things have their time, though, and the golden moment eventually passed, as moments tend to do.

 

Regulus spent most of the following weekend fast asleep- a temporary crash after having a great deal of potions in his system, Mr Potter had reassured him, and nothing to worry about at all.

 

This was probably for the best, because Harry was in a similar state, and it rained all weekend, meaning that had he been awake, Regulus would have been stuck playing chess and Gobstones with Sirius and his friends. A hellish experience for all involved, no doubt.

 

So Regulus had slept, and survived off of soup and tea, and had managed an average of two and a half conversations a day- at least one of these was with Sirius, and usually involved Sirius swinging between irritating older brother, dickish Gryffindor, and recently disowned blood traitor with something to prove, if not a combination of all three.

 

The morning of Monday, the 28th of July rolled around before anyone knew it, as Mondays do.

 

Regulus got up frightfully early and put on the clothes that he had spent his entire ordeal in the dark in. He waited then, just for five minutes, for something impossible to happen- for the golden moment and surprisingly easy conversation and an undeniable sense of peace and comfort to be salvaged.

 

(For a letter to come, or for someone to wander in and sit down on his bed and ask him to stay another day.)

 

But impossible things are called impossible for a reason rather than highly unlikely, and so Regulus was still sitting on the surprisingly comfortable bed in one of the Potters’ spare bedrooms five minutes later, with nothing having changed at all.

 

The 28th of July had arrived, but no letters from home had arrived with it.

 

That stung, rather more than Regulus had been expecting. Some part of him had just presumed that his parents would write to him before his self-imposed deadline, that they would tell him how worried they had been, and how long they had looked for him, and that they couldn’t wait to see him again. _That_ part of Regulus, the rest of Regulus thought viciously, was an idiot and not to be listened to in future.

 

Regulus got up and closed the door behind him as softly as he could.

 

He hesitated for a moment, staring down the hallway.

 

Harry was just three doors down, in between a small sitting room-type place where James Potter apparently expected his guests to Floo through and an empty bedroom which was devoid of all furniture.

 

Further down still was James Potter’s room and the room which Sirius had claimed for his own and was already in the middle of decorating to match the one in Grimmauld Place and the guest rooms which Pettigrew and Lupin were supposedly using though probably weren’t from all the laughter Regulus had heard spilling out of James Potter’s room on the way back from the bathroom last night.

 

Regulus stood there for a moment, frozen in place and his mind full of sunlight, sweet-smelling linen, surprisingly easy conversation, and an incredible amount of laughter.

 

And then the moment passed, and Regulus turned on his heel and made his way down to the dining room.

 

_Pull yourself together, Regulus Black._

 

It was 8 o’clock, which meant that the elder Potters were already having breakfast by themselves, and that none of the other teenagers in the house would make an appearance for another half an hour at least.

 

“Good morning, Regulus,” said Mr Potter, looking up from his conversation with his wife to see Regulus in the doorway.

 

“Good morning,” said Regulus, feeling frightfully uncomfortable.

 

“Did you sleep well?”, asked Mrs Potter, only looking a bit surprised to see him up so early.

 

“Yes, thank you. Did you?”

 

“Wonderfully, thank you, dear. Won’t you sit and have breakfast?”

 

Regulus was sorely tempted.

 

“No, thank you,” he said, with no small amount of difficulty. “I’ve taken advantage of your hospitality long enough- the time has come for me to return home.”

 

“I see,” said Mr Potter, blue eyes surprisingly sharp over his glasses.

 

“If you’re sure?”, said Mrs Potter, voice carefully measured.

 

Regulus nodded. “Yes, thank you. I’m sure my parents will want to see me.”

 

“I’m sure they will,” said Mr Potter, an odd look flickering over his face.

 

“Are you sure that you won’t stay for breakfast, Regulus?”

 

Mrs Potter sounded ever-so-slightly desperate. Regulus wasn’t sure why.

 

“No, thank you. Really, I must be off. I just- I just wanted to say- _thank you._ Thank you for having me these last few days, and-”

 

Regulus broke off for a moment, frowning to himself at the dizzying swirl of emotions roiling in his stomach.

 

He looked back at the Potters and said, sincerely, “Thank you for- for looking after my-” He broke off and gestured clumsily at the stairs. The word ‘ _brother’_ stayed unspoken, because legally Regulus was an only child now.

 

Mrs Potter nodded and smiled. “Not a problem, Regulus.”

 

Mr Potter smiled as well, though it looked a bit sad. “Will I open the Floo for you?”, he asked.

 

Regulus shook his head. “No, thank you. I’ll ask Kreacher to come get me.”

 

“Your house-elf?”, Mrs Potter clarified.

 

Regulus nodded. “He’s very loyal.”

 

“Alright then, dear. It’s been wonderful having you, Regulus,” said Mrs Potter, sounding as if she meant it.

 

Regulus’ throat felt oddly tight- he wasn’t very sure why.

 

“Yes, you really _must_ come back to visit some time,” said Mr Potter. “I’m sure that the boys will be glad to see you- feel free to drop by whenever you’d like.”

 

Regulus blinked and was alarmed to find that there was a familiar warm pressure building up behind his eyes.

 

_Crying isn’t beneficial_ or  _proper, Regulus. Control yourself._

 

“Thank you,” he said again, somewhat redundantly.

 

And then he knew that it was time to leave as quickly as he could because Euphemia Potter would almost definitely kiss his cheek if she didn’t hug him first, and Fleamont Potter would almost definitely shake his hand and clap him on the back in an almost hug, and Regulus wasn’t sure if he’d be able to leave at all if any of those things happened, much like he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to leave if Sirius were to come down the stairs right now and ask him not to go.

 

_Fucking Sirius._

 

“Goodbye,” said Regulus, flashing the Potters a tight smile. “I’ll see myself out.”

 

And then he hurried away, down the hallway and past the stairs, and then he had shut the front door behind him and he was blinking in the bright sunshine as he walked through the Potters’ front garden as quickly as he could.

 

It was definitely for the best that no one else would know that he was gone for a while, Regulus decided.

 

He went through the front gate, glanced back at the Potters’ grand, oddly welcoming-looking, house, and then hurried out of sight, until he couldn’t see the house at all through the hedges.

 

Regulus swallowed.

 

“Kreacher!”

 

There was a long pause, in which Regulus wondered if he should have taken Mr Potter up on his offer after all, and then Kreacher appeared before him with a muted pop.

 

“Master Regulus!”

 

Kreacher looked equal parts surprised as he did pleased, and Regulus couldn’t help but smile at the wrinkled old elf.

 

“Hello, Kreacher.”

 

“Master Regulus has been gone for a fortnight! Kreacher thought- Kreacher is glad that Master Regulus is unharmed.”

 

Kreacher hesitated for a moment, looking up at him with an indecipherable look in his eyes, and then he said, “Mistress and Master have been missing Master Regulus dearly.”

 

Regulus wished, for both their sakes, that Kreacher was more convincing.

 

One of Kreacher’s ears flicked, almost nervously.

 

“Is Master Regulus coming home now?”

 

Regulus felt a sudden surge of guilt, for how long he had stayed at the Potters’, and for the sudden, tiny, moment where a part of him considered saying no, and turning around and going straight back to sunlight and sarcasm- bursts of laughter and oddly warm voices and eyes.

 

He had the strangest feeling, as Kreacher stared up at him patiently, that Kreacher wouldn’t have been too against the idea.

 

And then Regulus forcibly reminded himself that the people he was thinking of were blood-traitors and half-bloods and Gryffindors and that he was none of those things- would _never_ be any of those things. He’d made his choice, years ago, to stand by his family and he would continue to do so now, even if he _had_ been through a bit of an ordeal and they hadn’t even written.

 

“Yes, Kreacher,” said Regulus, finally. “Let’s go.”

 

Kreacher grabbed his hand and the world bent and blurred around them and then the sunlight and quiet bird-song was gone.

 

Regulus blinked, trying to make his eyes adjust more quickly.

 

He was standing outside of Sirius’ bedroom- the door still closed- and blinking like an idiot. 12 Grimmauld Place was quiet as a tomb.

 

Regulus let go of Kreacher’s small hand.

 

“Would Master Regulus like anything? His tea and toast, perhaps?”

 

And even though he hadn’t had breakfast earlier, Regulus found himself shaking his head.

 

“No thank you, Kreacher. I’m alright. Are-”, his voice caught and he hated himself for it, “are my parents around?”

 

Kreacher flicked an ear again, eyes dark and glittering in the dim light.

 

His voice was oddly gentle when he said, “The Master and Mistress are indisposed, Master Regulus.”

 

Regulus nodded and said, around the tightness in his throat, “Thank you, Kreacher. You may go back to whatever you were doing before.”

 

“Will Master Regulus call if he is hungry?”

 

Regulus almost smiled. “Yes, Kreacher.”

 

Kreacher nodded and then popped away again.

 

And then 12 Grimmauld Place was dark and quiet and Regulus was very, very, alone.

 

Strange, how that kept on happening.

 

Things were still not going especially well for Regulus Arcturus Black.

 

Very strange indeed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: this was where draft one ended. And with the exact same ending, too. Luckily for all of us, that is no longer the case.


	17. Letters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> Right, first things first, I'm really, really, sorry that this is a week late. I meant to post it last week, but I've been quite sick lately and by the time Sunday came around I just wasn't able to post it. Then I meant to post it during the week, but that proved impossible because life is a little bit hectic at the moment, and on a weekday I barely have time to scratch myself, let alone do the final edit of a chapter and then post it. So, I'm sorry. On the bright side though, here we are now! Better late than never, right?
> 
> Second, thank you all. Thank you all so very, very, much for all the kind words and your continuous support. It really means so much to me, and it's absolutely amazing that others are enjoying this story as much as I am. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you like this chapter! Here be letters, more than minor irritation, and Harry being more than a little bit overwhelmed.

**28th - 31st July 1975**

It was nearly half-past nine when Harry woke up, which was practically the crack of dawn for a teenager on his summer holidays and with nowhere in particular to be.

 

For a very long moment, Harry just lay there and blinked slowly at the ceiling and the slightly blurred pattern of sunlight coming in from the chinks between the curtains. The house was quiet, his bed was comfortable, and there was faint birdsong still coming in through the half-open window. All in all, a very enjoyable, relaxed, moment.

 

And then his stomach rumbled and Harry decided that it was time to get up.

 

He sat up, fumbled around for his glasses for a minute, and then swung his legs out of bed and onto the floor, grimacing slightly as muscles which hadn’t been used much in the last while were suddenly pulled.

 

After a moment of thinking it over, Harry opened the curtains and pushed the window a bit further out so that Hedwig could return from her night’s hunt. He decided then that that was probably enough responsible thinking to be doing before breakfast, and got out of bed.

 

Harry yawned, stretched until something in his back popped, and opened the door. The hallway was quiet too, though if he really listened Harry could just about make out the sound of some sort of activity floating down from the far right, in the direction of the bathroom and where all the people who Harry felt slightly uncomfortable around were sleeping.

 

He turned left, towards the stairs.

 

There was an empty room next to his, and then a small room which looked like an odd combination of living room and cloakroom, and the room Regulus was in, which had been pointed out to him after dinner on Friday. The door was open and the bed was already made, which meant that Regulus was already up and probably on the other side of the house by now. Harry only hoped that he hadn’t managed to bump into Sirius yet- it seemed a bit too early for such a disaster.

 

Down the stairs solo, then.

 

There were apparently two flights of stairs connecting the ground floor to the first floor; Harry had no idea where the other one even was, let alone what it was like, but the one before him was very much the sort of grand, sweeping, thing found in a country manor, or possibly one of the slightly more modern-looking corners of Hogwarts.

 

He went down the stairs, through the hall, and past a bright and airy-looking reception room of some sort.

 

Harry wandered into the dining room at a leisurely pace, feeling wonderfully relaxed for once and only now realising that he hadn’t the faintest clue where the kitchen was.

 

Quite luckily for Harry, Monty and Effie were already sitting at the table with steaming cups of tea, a plate of toast, and what was likely the morning edition of the _Daily Prophet._

 

Quite unluckily for Harry, they both looked rather serious; serious enough that the crossword had been abandoned half-way through.

 

Effie turned around to look when Harry came in, and smiled at him, though not quite as brightly as before.

 

“Oh! Good morning, Harry. Did you sleep well, dear?”

 

Harry smiled back somewhat uncertainly, because there was still a faint line visible between Effie’s eyebrows and Monty, though looking pleased to see him, was tracing small, agitated, circles on the table with his finger.

 

“Yeah, I did. Thanks. Did you?”

 

“Very well, thank you. Why don’t you sit down here, next to Monty, and I’ll go get you something to eat,” said Effie, already rising from her seat. “How does a cup of tea and a plate of fry-up sound?”

 

“Oh, er, lovely, thanks,” said Harry, pulling out the indicated chair. “I don’t want to cause you any trouble, though.”

 

“Nonsense,” said Effie , exchanging a look with her husband before turning back to Harry. “The boys will probably be up soon enough, and Merlin knows they’ve never turned down a nice plate of eggs and hash browns before.”

 

She smiled, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and disappeared through a door on the other side of the room. She seemed unusually distracted this morning, Harry thought, about as scattered as Monty usually was.

 

Harry sat down.

 

Monty turned the newspaper back to the front page and folded it in half very carefully, not looking at Harry as he did.

 

Harry’s heart was starting to speed up.

 

_Do they know?_

 

His attention was briefly caught by the headline, _‘FIVE ARRESTED FOR MID-LANDS VLC FIRE’,_ before Monty asked, “Any plans for the day?”

 

Harry shook his head. “Not really. Might ask Regulus if he’s up for some Quidditch- I’ve got my broom.”

 

Monty pushed his glasses up his nose. He had round lenses like Harry, whereas James favoured more square ones.

 

“I’m afraid that you’ll have to ask one of the others instead, if you want to play Quidditch,” said Monty, finally looking Harry in the eye. He looked slightly uncomfortable.

 

“Oh,” said Harry. “Is he still sick?”

 

Monty looked distinctly ill at ease now. “No, I don’t think so. The thing is-” He broke off, sighed slightly, and unnecessarily pushed his glasses back up his nose again.

“Regulus left this morning,” said Monty. “He’s gone back to his parents.”

 

“Oh,” said Harry again. “When?”

 

“About an hour and a half ago. You were all still asleep.”

 

“Did he say anything?”

 

Monty’s eyes were warm. “No,” he said gently, “just that he’d taken advantage of our hospitality long enough and that he was likely missed at home. I don’t think even Sirius knows that he’s gone yet.”

 

“Oh,” said Harry, one more time. There was a slightly dizzy mix of emotions building in his chest- something lonely, something surprised, something worried. And above all, a surprising amount of knife-sharp hurt; _he’d thought that they were nearly friends, and he hadn’t even said goodbye._

 

Harry stared unseeingly at the grain of the table for a minute, something cold sweeping through him.

 

Hermione would have said goodbye. Ron would have said goodbye.

 

And then the hurt spiked and morphed into something else- anger.

 

 _What the_ fuck, _Regulus? Couldn’t even be arsed to say goodbye? After everything- after escaping from a bloody_ cell _in the middle of nowhere together- after all that laughing and joking around, and he couldn’t even bother to say anything? That absolute_ prick.

 

(There was a part of Harry which was acutely aware that he was now very much on his own; that the closest thing he had to a friend and a confidant in this strange world had upped and left without warning.

 

That part of Harry was also fuming.)

 

Harry’s gaze snapped back to Monty, who looked openly concerned.

 

“Are you alright?”, he asked.

 

Harry took all of the feelings, all of the hurt and anger and loneliness, and shoved it down to be dealt with later. It wasn’t easy.

 

“Yep,” said Harry, perhaps a touch too flippantly. “Are you?”

 

Monty smiled a little bit. “Fine, thank you. Oh, yes- just remembered- I got a reply from Professor McGonagall yesterday- she’s the deputy Headmistress at Hogwarts. She also teaches Transfiguration and she’s the boys’ Head of House too, now that I think about it. I suppose she gets a lot of holidays or a significant bonus in compensation. You'd imagine that she would, after all that. Where was I?”

 

“She sent you a reply,” supplied Harry, grinning slightly.

 

“Right, yes. Thank you, Harry. Professor McGonagall said that standardised testing can be organised for next week onwards on school grounds, and that she’s currently working on having you enrolled.”

 

“Brilliant,” said Harry, as Effie came back out with a cup of tea and a plate floating along beside her.

 

“She just needs a few more things this week,” continued Monty. He stopped for a moment to peck his wife on the cheek as Harry thanked her for his delicious-smelling breakfast. “The subjects you’re studying for your O.W.L.s, any special requirements, allergies. That sort of thing. I’ve got a list somewhere or other, actually- we’ll have a look at it later, if I manage to find it.”

 

“It’s still in your pocket, dear,” said Effie, fondly.

 

Monty patted his right pocket, which made a crinkling noise. He beamed at her. “So it is. Thank you, darling.”

 

Harry gulped down a mouthful of tea- which was one sugar and hardly any milk; just the way he liked it. He wondered if the cups were enchanted or if it was just one of his grandmother’s many gifts.

 

“Thank you,” said Harry, really meaning it. “For letting me stay, and setting all this up at school for me, and stuff. Just- thanks.”

 

“Not a problem,” said Effie.

 

“You’re very welcome,” said Monty.

 

They were all quiet for a moment, during which Harry’s sort-of-grandparents exchanged a look which was probably laden with meaning, and Harry enjoyed one of his hash browns, and then a sausage.

 

Harry caught Effie’s eye, and for a moment she seemed to be on the verge of saying something serious. Harry tensed slightly in his seat; surely now was the moment where she would demand to know the truth about him and he wouldn’t be able to lie to her again, especially now that he was on his own.

 

But then Effie smiled instead, and Monty asked him, “Do you have a favourite subject?”, and Harry relaxed again.

 

“Defence Against the Dark Arts,” he said, cutting into his egg. “I’m decent enough at it, too.”

 

“You should talk to Remus then,” said Effie, “before he goes home. He told me the last time he was here that he was thinking about studying it after school. His father, Lyall, is very involved in the field, too.”

 

“I will,” said Harry, not really intending to do any such thing, even if it would’ve been nice to talk to his favourite DADA teacher again.

 

_(But that’s not going to be happening any time soon, is it Harry? You really bollocksed that one up, didn’t you?)_

 

The rest of Harry’s breakfast went in a similar fashion, with both his grandparents seeming as if there was something else they wanted to tell him but instead either asking him safe, easy, questions about himself or reminiscing about their youth or when James had been much younger, and Harry's heart jumping all over the place every time.

 

At this rate of going, Harry thought to himself as he retreated back upstairs under the pretence of getting dressed, he was going to suffer from heart failure before he was twenty.

 

He passed Regulus’ open door again then, and all of the hurt and anger from earlier returned with a vengeance.

 

Harry stalked into his own room and slammed the door, startling Hedwig awake again.

 

She hooted at him reproachfully.

 

“Sorry,” said Harry, probably not sounding very genuine.

 

And then he looked at Hedwig, and his trunk, and the open window.

 

The hurt was still sitting deep in his chest, and Harry decided that he would much rather air his grievances with the intended target, rather than upset Hedwig again.

 

He wrenched open his trunk and carelessly shoved through layers of books and clothes to get to his quill and ink, and a single scrap of parchment. _Quidditch Through the Ages: 10_ _th_ _Anniversary Edition_ seemed to look at him accusingly from under a slightly threadbare t-shirt. Something in Harry’s stomach twisted and he shut the trunk again very hastily.

 

And then, before he could start to wonder if he was going to regret this later, Harry spread the parchment flat on his trunk and scribbled out a very short, not especially pleased, missive. He rolled it up roughly and approached Hedwig.

 

“D’you feel up to another trip?”, asked Harry, stroking her head. Hedwig shook out her feathers and barked quietly, eyes bright and alert.

 

Harry smiled slightly. “Alright, then. This is for Regulus Black.” His mouth twisted slightly as he attached the note to Hedwig’s proffered leg. “He’s probably somewhere in London. Try and get a reply, yeah? Don’t bother if he’s being an arsehole, though.”

 

Hedwig nipped slightly at one of Harry’s fingers, shook out her feathers again, and then took off through the window.

 

Harry watched her soar for a moment, a bright white fleck against the Potters’ sunny garden. And then she was out of sight, and Harry was on his own again.

 

It wasn’t a very nice feeling.

 

 

The rest of the day passed without anything much happening to Harry. He hardly saw anyone, partly because his father and his friends seemed to be going out of their way to avoid him (which hurt, just a little bit, actually) and partly because he stayed upstairs working through his now probably redundant summer homework.

 

It was very hard to soldier on through the horrible essay Snape had set when there was a part of Harry which took great pleasure in pointing out how pointless the essay was, seeing as he was never going to sit through another one of Snape’s classes ever again. Harry grit his teeth and persevered though, and most definitely did not flinch every time someone passed his closed door.

 

Everything was just fine, thanks for asking.

 

Dinner was quiet; something about the look on his face must have hinted at just how displeased Harry currently was because only his grandparents made any real effort to engage him in conversation (which was rather kind of them actually, and Harry wished that he were in the mood to properly appreciate it) and they gave up after the fourth monosyllabic answer.

 

Not that that bothered him, or anything.

 

Monty asked him if he wanted to play chess after dinner. Harry remembered Ron and had to turn him down, throat tight.

 

Effie asked him if he was keeping on top of his school-work. Something sick squirmed in Harry’s stomach and Hermione came to mind. Harry assured them both that he was.

 

He went to bed early that night.

 

Hedwig still wasn’t back.

 

Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew went home early on Tuesday morning, Flooing out from somewhere downstairs. They both awkwardly said goodbye to Harry as he came downstairs for his breakfast. He awkwardly said goodbye back and was briefly proud of his own show of maturity in choosing not to glare venomously at Pettigrew but choosing to look slightly over his head instead.

 

Harry’s sort-of-father and sort-of-godfather both disappeared back upstairs shortly after that; James had ignored him entirely (which stung quite a bit) though Sirius at least had half-smiled at him as he went. Harry wondered if he was pissed off with Regulus too.

 

Tuesday and Wednesday were much the same as Monday had been, though Harry managed to pull himself out of his funk long enough to help Effie with dinner on Tuesday and Monty with it on Wednesday. Surprisingly, despite the fact that the Potters seemed to be reasonably well off, Harry had yet to see even the faintest trace of a house-elf, and his grandparents shared the responsibility of cooking meals.

 

He was starting to run out of probably pointless essays to write.

 

It was very late on Wednesday night- long after Harry had gone to bed, though not to sleep- when Hedwig returned.

 

Harry was sitting up in bed, staring out the window at the stars scattered across the dark cloth of the night sky when a pale shape suddenly glided into view.

 

Hedwig came in through the hastily-opened window in a great rustling of feathers and settled down on Harry’s lap with a self-satisfied noise.

 

“Hello,” whispered Harry, mindful of the fact that the clock he had found in the wardrobe yesterday and had since put on his bedside locker was rapidly approaching midnight.

 

Hedwig hooted and raised her leg; there was a neat scroll tied to it, with a strange black seal holding it closed.

 

Once relieved of her burden, Hedwig nipped Harry’s finger, as she was wont to do, and went back out through the window to settle in a nearby tree, presumably looking for food.

 

Harry stared down at the letter. There was a name written on it, in unfamiliar swirling letters; _Henry Avery._

 

Harry had no idea who Henry Avery was. If it wasn’t for the fact that Hedwig was far too clever to make a mistake like that, Harry would have thought that she had accidentally stolen someone else’s post. As it was, he was rather confused and slightly irritated. Could nothing in life be straightforward?

 

Some of his initial anger had cooled over the last while, and he was starting to regret how abrupt he had been. The hurt lingered on though, and it was the hurt combined with a certain amount of curiosity which prompted Harry to break the seal and unroll the message.

 

_12 Grimmauld Place_

_Islington_

_London_

 

 _30_ _th_ _July_

_Dear Harry,_

_My most sincere apologies for the lateness of this reply-_ _my parents and I had much to discuss after recent events, and your letter completely slipped my mind. Rest assured that Hedwig was well-looked after during her stay, however. Kreacher took excellent care of her. How were your holidays abroad? Vienna, wasn’t it?_

_You are completely right; it was rather impolite of me, how abruptly I left you all that day in Diagon Alley. I can only say that I was rather preoccupied with other matters; you know how I tend to ruminate on things best forgotten. My subsequent illness was hardly a help, either. Still, I am very sorry for my shocking lapse in manners._

_Given above is our Floo address; Mother and Father asked me to give it to you in the hopes that you and Nathaniel attend afternoon tea on the 14_ _th_ _of August. They are aware that you are both likely to be away again but asked that I extend the invitation should there be a change in plans. I would be pleased to see you both again, but please feel no pressure to attend; I know how important your studies are to you. August is the trip to Sydney, isn’t it? I hope it goes well for you._

_As a final word, happy birthday, Harry. I know it’s tomorrow- I haven’t forgotten. I was afraid that Hedwig wouldn’t be able to carry your gift alone, so I didn’t send it on with her. Should we be able to meet sometime in this next month, I will of course gift it to you then. If I cannot, however, feel free to seek me out on the Hogwarts Express, though preferably without Nathaniel knowing- it completely slipped my mind to send him his gift on time in March, and though he did receive it in the end, it was a day late and I’m not sure if he has forgiven me yet._

_I must leave you now- Father has arranged some extra lessons for me. You know how it is. Give my regards to everyone at home._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Regulus A Black_

 

 _P.S. Did you ever replace those books the dog tore? If not, I have some books on cryptography you can borrow._ _Be sure to put them up high- Mother and Father would be most displeased if they fell into canine hands._

 

Harry blinked and read the letter again.

 

_What the fuck?_

 

It was obvious that Regulus knew who he was writing to, regardless of what the name on the front of the letter was, but who the _fuck_ was Nathaniel? Vienna? _What?_

 

Harry’s gaze fell on the postscript, and the word ‘cryptography’ in particular. It was a vaguely familiar-looking word, though he wasn’t quite sure what it meant. It reminded him of the word ‘cryptic’, though, which seemed very fitting for this particular letter.

 

And then an idea began to dawn.

 

 _Cryptic-_ _it doesn’t make sense- like a code._

 

Harry stared down at the letter in his lap, mind whirring. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t hear the quiet click the clock made as it reached midnight. It was now Harry’s fifteenth birthday, and he had received post for it just as he had every year since he had turned eleven. Though this year he had gotten mystery and a possible apology instead of a cake and a card.

 

Mystery, a possible apology, and a steadily growing sense of what just might have been hope- a quiet (perhaps somewhat foolish) belief that everything would be alright despite it all.

 

_Happy birthday, Harry._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: in the original outline, this chapter was meant to just be one half of an epistolary. This chapter and the next were to be every letter even so much as hinted at before as well as several important newspaper articles. I think I like it more this way. 
> 
> Also, I know most of you probably don't care especially because I'm almsot positive that it'll never come up again, but I forgot to mention last chapter that the home-schooling system works about the way one would imagine, but that a branch school, such as Green Terns, would provide a certain amount of funding and support as well as the recognised certificates for any examinations done. However by 1975 home-schooling is becoming incredibly unpopular (due in part to the falling population because of the war and the fact that Hogwarts is much safer) and most people wouldn't have the faintest idea what a branch school is. By the time Harry starts school, home-schooling has all but stopped in magical Britain.
> 
> Also also, if you're especially eagle-eyed, you might have noticed the difference between the day Harry left 1995 and the day he arrived in 1975, meaning that technically he turned 15 on the 28th of July, even if no one actually knows this. So this chapter starts and ends on Harry's birthday.


	18. Letters, Codes, and the Passage of Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Firstly, huge thank you to everyone who's reading this, has left a comment, kudo, or bookmark, or subscribed. We're reaching incredible heights on all those fronts, and I appreciate every single one of them and you. So thank you.
> 
> So we've finally come to an end, then. (For now, at least.) Is the ending likely a bit rushed feeling? But of course- it wouldn't have been written by a Stressed Individual otherwise. I'm hoping to come back and fix this chapter up a bit at some point, but until that glorious day comes, we're all just going to have to make do. Is it possible that I'm going to re-read this later and realise that I accidentally left out a huge chunk and will have to add on a new final chapter? Yes. Yes it is.  
> Thank you all so much for your continuous support throughout the writing of this fic- it means the world to me and you're all absolutely incredible. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
> 
> I'm currently working on the part 2 I promised a while ago, as well as the proper continuation to this fic which should begin in September 1975, though no promises. I might have the first chapter of part 2 up in a few hours time, or else it'll have to wait until next week. Same update times apply, though updates mightn't be weekly anymore, though I will try my best.
> 
> And with nothing more to say, I hope you like this chapter, and are both left with some questions and are starting to come up with theories as to how it all fits together. Feel free to ask me any questions if you want something cleared up, and I'll try my best to answer without spoiling everything.
> 
> Up next, a new pov (better late than never?), codes, and the epistolary thing that you probably thought you wouldn't have to suffer through.
> 
> ALSO, IMPORTANT: Some of the newspaper articles in this chapter either hint at or directly state some dark stuff. Nothing all that graphic, but not the most cheerful reading either. I'm sorry about that. If you are absolutely not in the mood for grim reading/a bit more angst (this story honestly wasn't so angsty in the outline) then skip over the articles (they're all clearly marked either The Daily Prophet or The Healer's Herald) and maybe the last three letters (they're kinda angsty but in the same way that previous chapters have been and are marked with the date and to and from) and just ask me for a summary in the comments.

**31st July 1975**

The thing about younger brothers, Sirius thought to himself, was that they seemed to be far more trouble than they were worth.

 

Case in point: Regulus was after fucking back off without so much as a by-your-leave, and yet here Sirius was, trying to move stealthily down the hallway at half-six in the fucking morning _in the summer_ and all because of Regulus, that little prick.

 

He’d been woken up fifteen minutes earlier- the greatest indignity he had suffered this past week and a half, he thought- by a quiet but insistent rapping at his window.

 

He had blinked once, twice, three times, had dragged a hand over his face, and (for a whole minute) had foolishly hoped that the sound would stop.

 

It had not.

 

As it turned out, the source of the noise had been an unfamiliar horned owl, which had regarded him with a great deal of dislike. A surprising amount of dislike, actually, seeing as it was an owl. From the way it had clicked its beak at him and landed snappishly on the desk Monty had found for him, he had a fair idea of who it was from.

 

The owl had taken off through the window again as soon as he had taken the tiny scroll from it, though not before biting him rather hard on the finger.

 

_Bastard._

 

Sirius had unrolled the surprisingly ragged scrap of paper then, finger aching all the while, and had regarded Regulus’ unusually rushed letters with a great deal of confusion.

 

_ixjz x.smjuzj. xu jjx. yn b uqjm. wyyq f xfm isjwnk yjxlstzd wd kt snby-wjfs._

 

_C urrently in quiet_

 

It was far too early for all this, the still half-asleep part of Sirius’ brain had weakly argued, before the rest of him had pointed out that that had hardly stopped him before.

 

And Sirius Black was many things, but a hypocrite wasn’t one of them.

 

And then his brain had started to fully wake up, and Sirius had opened his school trunk and started rooting around for a quill and some parchment.

 

_Fucking hell, Reg._

 

 

Regulus, Sirius had thought to himself not long after, was a great deal more rebellious than he had ever given him credit for.

 

The newly-decoded message was surprising, to say the least. The fact that it existed at all, that Regulus (for all that he had fucked off never to acknowledge him again) had bothered writing to _him,_ the second biggest blood traitor this decade (second only to dearest Andromeda, seeing as Sirius had yet to marry a Muggleborn), should probably have been classed as a minor miracle.

 

And as for the actual content of the note, _well._

 

 _dseu s.nhepue. sp ees. ti w pleh. rttl a sah dnerif tesgnouy ry fo niwt-rean,_ was what Sirius had written on his parchment, underneath the word cinq, and anyone who looked at that for more than a second would realise that what it _actually_ said was, _near-twin of yr youngest friend has a lttr. help w it. see ps. euphen.s used,_ which was Regulus-speak for, ‘I’ve sent Harry a letter, go decode it.’

 

Regulus had never truly angered their parents. Sirius wondered if he was about to start now.

 

 

Harry (possibly) Potter was already awake and moving about when Sirius knocked on his door.

 

“Oh,” he said, still looking rather sleep-rumpled. “Hello.”

 

“Yeah, hi,” said Sirius, spying the corner of a crumpled sheet of parchment peeking out under the blanket. “I’ve been told that you have a letter.”

 

Harry glanced away guiltily. “Have you?”

 

“Yeah. I think the postscript might’ve told you to expect me?”

 

Comprehension visibly dawned. “ _Oh.”_

 

“So can I come in?”, asked Sirius, already starting to inch past the person who looked so much like his best friend.

 

Harry nodded and Sirius immediately made for the bed and pulled out the letter.

 

He made a face at it. “He never can just _say_ things, can he?”

 

“What exactly did you say in this letter of yours?”, he asked James’ maybe-cousin then, who shifted uncomfortably from where he was sitting at the other end of the bed and refused to make eye-contact.

 

“Why?”

 

“Well it must’ve been quite... _something_ if he’s trying to pass you off as one of the Averys. They’re very… well, they’re a bit...”, Sirius struggled to find the words for a good half a minute, and then gave it up as a bad job and moved on.

 

“Well it’s lucky for them that they’re good enough at forging a decent family tree to please the likes of my parents, is all I’ll say.” He wrinkled his nose. “Fuckwads.”

 

“Right,” said Harry, looking rather unsure. “And the Averys matter because...”

 

“Well, you see, the thing with dear old Mum and Dad is that they’re not really that fond of respecting other people’s privacy,” said Sirius blandly. “And for all that Reg is incapable of seeing all their other flaws, he’s aware of that much at least. And after all the, er, excitement, lately, it’s a wonder your letter even made it to him at all- security must be a nightmare.”

 

Harry blinked. “Your parents read your letters?”

 

“Well not mine anymore, obviously, but yeah. They’re like that. So you can’t say anything they won’t like because otherwise Mother gets into a right snit and Father reads out your letters at breakfast. Reg knows that because he isn’t entirely hopeless, and he also knows that they’d get all weird about it if he was writing to someone they didn’t approve of.”

 

Sirius absently rubbed at his face. “And they don’t approve of most things.”

 

“ _Anyway,_ the point is that everything here means something else, right? So, he’s addressed this letter to someone they’ll approve of- a Pureblood, like one of the Averys. Nathaniel Avery’s in Reg’s year, and his brother Sebastian’s the year above us. I don’t actually know if they have any cousins called Henry or Harry, but if I don’t, then neither does anyone else, which is good.”

 

“Alright,” said Harry, nodding slowly. “So he’s saying that I’m someone else, and then the bits about Vienna and Sydney are rubbish?”

 

Sirius frowned. “I think so? The thing about this is that it isn’t a code, so I can’t be absolutely sure what he really means. It’s more just knowing that he means something else, and what the something else is likely to be. So it probably doesn’t mean anything, or else it’s part of something else that he told _them._ Though,” he allowed, “Sydney might be a way of saying that you’re supposed to be out of the country next month, so letters only.”

 

Harry rubbed tiredly at his eyes, and looked uncomfortably like James as he did it.

 

“What’s this about tea, then?”

 

Sirius re-read the line, and then leaned forward. “Well, for a start, you’re going to have to send back a _very_ politely-worded letter turning down that invitation because you cannot, under _any_ circumstances, go to that house. _Ever.”_

 

“Why not?”

 

_Because I said so, you twat._

 

“Because they’ll take one look at you and then send you back here,” said Sirius somewhat impatiently. “Use your brain, Harry.”

 

Harry narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything.

 

“However,” Sirius continued, “if you want to write a proper letter back, you can do it sometime in the afternoon the day before- the Floo is open to letters all day the day before tea. It’s their big _thing_ where they invite everyone they know and only about ten people come, so they leave the Floo so that everyone can politely decline at the last moment. Reg’ll probably be waiting at a certain time, though,” he added, squinting at the letter, “if he said so here I can’t tell. I might have to try and write him a note later.”

 

“Okay,” said Harry, nodding decisively. “Okay. Got it. And this bit here,” he pointed to the second-last paragraph, “does that mean anything? Am I actually supposed to find him on the Express?”

 

“I think so,” said Sirius, “though you’ll have to be careful not to be seen by anyone- especially Avery. He’s a creepy little fuck. Likes to spy on people.”

 

Harry wrinkled his nose. “Alright. Is that it?”

 

“Think so.”

 

Harry bit his lip and looked away for a moment. He didn’t look much like James then, though he still reminded Sirius vaguely of someone-or-other.

 

“What’s the bit in the postscript got to do with you?”, asked Harry. There was something about his tone, or the look in his eye, which seemed to imply that he already knew the answer to the question.

 

Sirius eyed him somewhat oddly, but said anyway, “My name? You know, the Dog Star? I seem to recall there being a thing about it when we first met.”

 

“Oh,” said Harry. “Right. I’d forgotten.”

 

“Fair enough- it was a while ago, I suppose.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Running out of things to say alarmingly quickly (or rather, easy things to say which weren’t somewhat impolite questions about where the fuck Harry probably-Potter had come from, or weirdly sincere apologies for avoiding him so much) Sirius looked down at the letter again and blurted out the first thing which came to mind.

 

“So when _is_ your birthday? Really, I mean.”

 

Harry smiled a little bit. “Today. I’m fifteen now, I suppose.”

 

Sirius blinked. “Oh. Oh, right. Cool. Happy birthday, then.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“Expecting any presents?”

 

Harry shook his head. “I’ve no one to give them to me,” he said. “And I could hardly expect Effie and Monty to give me anything- they’ve done enough.”

 

“O-oh,” said Sirius. “Yeah, I know what you mean. They’ve done the same for me. They’re good like that.”

 

“Yeah,” nodded Harry. “They are.”

 

Sirius stood up then. “ _Anyway,_ I’ll leave you to it then. Go back to sleep, or something. I’ll help you with that letter later.”

 

“Thanks,” said Harry, as Sirius not-so-subtly made his way to the door.

 

Sirius paused then, one hand on the handle. “Happy birthday,” he said again. He looked back at Harry, who looked both awfully like and awfully unlike James Potter.

 

“You’re alright,” said Sirius. “Really. I’ll ask James if he’s up for some cards later- Exploding Snap’s always fun with three people. More slapping involved.”

 

Harry grinned. “Thanks,” he said again. “Bye.”

 

“Bye,” said Sirius, before he managed to escape into the hall.

 

It would seem, he reflected morosely as he made his way back to bed, that he had suddenly developed the conversational skills of a Flobberworm, which was most definitely not a good thing.

 

Still. To bed for now, and to write secret letters later.

 

Sirius grinned slightly to himself.

 

_Fucking hell, Reg._

 

_Fucking hell._

 

 

**July 1975**

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Thursday, 3 rd July 1975**

 

**FOUR DEAD AFTER FIRE AT MID-LANDS VLC CENTRE- FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED**

 

**by M. Hilary**

 

It was about half-four this morning when the first plume of smoke was reported to the Magical Law Enforcement Squad.

Boots hit the ground before ten minutes had gone by, but for Mildred Williams (Werewolf Support Services, Being Division, MoM), Elisabeta Albu (noted vampire rights activist), Maury Davies (werewolf rights activist) and a young werewolf identified as Rupert Brown, it was already too late.

The Mid-Lands Vampirism and Lycanthropy Centre burned for an estimated two hours before the fires could be quenched.

So far no more deaths have been reported, though there have been 7 major casualties and 10 minor.

Due to the nature of the fire and recent tensions in the area, foul play is suspected, and the Ministry urges anyone with information to come forward.

Regular clients of the Centre are to be referred to the Being division of the Ministry until further notice, and some clinical services may no longer be available.

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Tuesday, 15 th July 1975**

**MINISTRY ‘TOUGHENING STANCE’ ON ILLEGAL IMPORTS AND EXPORTS**

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Monday, 21 st July 1975**

**ILLEGAL HALLUCINOGENICS FOUND IN POTION-BREWER’S HOME**

 

‘ _ **I was framed’, says Abington**_

 

 

**24 th July 1975**

 

**(To Remus, From James)**

 

_Moony,_

_Mum and Dad said that you and Pete could come over tomorrow, stay for a few days if you want. Mum’s asking yours first- you know what she’s like. Padfoot’s already here- for the rest of the summer at least. I meant to tell you earlier, but Mum said that I was over-working Arthur enough as it is, never mind making him fly to_ Calais, _of all places. Could you have gotten any further away? Looking at him now, I think she might have had a point (don’ t tell her I said that)- the poor bugger looks nearly ready to keel over. He’s looked like that ever since he came back from Sirius’ at the start of the month, actually…_

_Anyway, would love to see you and Wormtail again soon- there are more kestrels in the nest. And I need someone a bit more helpful than Sirius for operation WHO- he just keeps on laughing, the useless git._

_See you soon,_

_James_

_PS: Cartography’s coming along nicely, but ink-spitting remains a mystery. Sirius thinks ‘we’ (and we all know who ‘we’ are, even though he still won’t admit that it’s his fault) might have over-did some of the absorbency charms. He’s actually useless._

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Friday, 25 th July 1975**

**CRIME ON THE RISE IN LONDON, SAYS NEWEST MINISTRY SURVEY**

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Monday 28 th July 1975**

**FIVE ARRESTED AFTER MID-LANDS VLC FIRE**

 

 

**-Family Announcements-**

 

**DEATHS**

 

**DAZES, Frank Randolph, ‘Daisies’**

 

Frank DAZES (12th May 1873- circa 15th July 1975) was found deceased in fields of Salisbury, on evening of Sunday 27th July after two months missing.

Mr Dazes, 102, was found physically unharmed and is believed to have died of natural causes.

He is survived by daughter Ruby, 43.

‘Daisies’, as he was known to friends and family, is best known for both his work in the field of Herbology in the early 20th century, and his status as one of Britain’s most well-documented cases of _floribus manus,_ better known as Gardener’s Hands.

Mr Dazes’ death is still being investigated by Ministry officials and has currently been ruled as man-slaughter.

 

Rest well, ‘Daisies’ Dazes.

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Tuesday, 29 th  July 1975 **

**SEARCH FOR ELSIE AND ROSENDA STILL ON-GOING**

 

‘ _ **We will not give up so easily,’ says Ogden**_

 

**by R. Jones**

 

Nearly six weeks after their disappearances, Elsie Williams, 11, and Rosenda Torres, 16, are still missing, and the Aurors and MLES are still without a solid lead, according to an inside source at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Nearly 70% of all missing children in the last 100 years have been found within the first three weeks.

Yet the Magical Law Enforcement Squad, at least, has yet to lose hope.

‘We will not give up so easily’, said Head of MLES Malcolm Ogden, 49. ‘We have combined forces with the Auror Department, the Muggle authorities, and the Protectores de las Personas in northern Spain. We are confident in our ability to find the girls, and find them soon.’

 

Elsie Williams had recently turned eleven, and had recently discovered that she was a witch, and not a Muggle like her parents, John and Mercy.

She was visiting Diagon Alley for the second time in her life, shopping for supplies to begin her first year at Hogwarts with in September, and had been swept away from her parents by the crowd.

 

Rosenda Torres had been on holiday in Britain, together with her parents Gloria and Leon and brother Mateo, 14. The Torres’ time abroad had been drawing to a close when young Rosenda, about to start her sixth year at the Académie de Magie Beauxbâtons in France, decided to visit Diagon Alley for a quick shopping trip on her own.

 

The two had nothing in common, bar the fact that they were both due to under-go therapy in October; Elsie was believed to be a sufferer of Madison’s Fault, last seen in Britain in 1892. Rosenda was known in European medical circles as one of the worst cases of _ilektrikí kardiá,_ Electrical Heart Syndrome, this century.

 

The two had nothing in common, and perhaps it was mere chance that their paths crossed that fateful day in June.

But cross they did, and Elsie Williams and Rosenda Torres were last seen in the company of each other and an unidentified adult witch just outside Purcell’s Potions at 11:30am on the 18th of June this year.

They have not been seen or heard from since.

 

Included on pages 3 and 4 are descriptions of both girls alongside recent photographs, as well as contact information for the Missing Persons Office.

If you or someone you know believe you have information regarding the most recent whereabouts of either Rosenda Torres or Elsie Williams, please do not hesitate to contact the office through their confidential owling system.

The Williams’ and the Torres’ are now offering substantial rewards for the safe returns of their daughters.

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Friday, 1 st August 1975**

**MISSING SQUIB FOUND, ADMITTED TO ST. MUNGO’S**

 

**by M. Hilary**

 

Mai Richards, 46, was declared missing just over a month ago- and today she was found wandering the streets of her home-town Tinworth, Cornwall.

Unfortunately, the mother of four was found to be severely traumatised and is currently undergoing therapy in St. Mungo’s.

Foul play and Dark Magic are both suspected, and Aurors are appealing for anyone with information to come forward.

 

 

**MLES AND MISSING PERSONS OFFICE STILL LOOKING FOR INFORMATION**

 

**by J. Macmillan**

 

The Magical Law Enforcement Squad and Missing Persons Office are still looking for information regarding the disappearance of a young man, believed to have been between 16 and 20 years of age, from just outside Trackleshanks Locksmiths, 18 Knockturn Alley, on 14th July.

The youth is described as being dark-haired, well-dressed, and sporting a hooded cloak.

He was believed to have been taken ill and disapparated by persons unknown.

MPO confidential owling desk now open.

 

 

**2 nd August 1975**

 

**(To Regulus, From Sirius)**

 

_Hloevw. Sld olmt lm 14?_

 

_ serbmon-and back _

 

 

**3 rd August 1975**

 

**(To Remus, From Sirius)**

 

_Moony,_

_I’m so sorry about what happened- Prongs told me this morning. I know it seems impossible right now, but you’ll make it through this. You will. It isn’t the end of the world, even if it probably feels like it. Worse things have happened to a warlock, after all._

_...I’m lying. It_ is _that bad. You traitor. We can’t be seen together in public anymore- you’ll completely ruin my image, you_ Prefect. _Merlin above, even the_ word _makes me feel sick. What did you do to McGonagall to deserve this? Have you been secretly tutoring First Years and supervising Gobstones club? (I knew this was why you were abandoning us so much last year- Mary Reeves, my arse.)_

_Don’t worry though, Moons. We’ll make it through this. We will. We’ll stay strong and stand together like we always do. I suppose that I’ll relax my rules regarding authority figures and my proximity to them for your sake. It’s the least I can do, I suppose, given the circumstances._

_Dinner’s ready. Write me back, you arse, preferably within the next week._

_Cheers,_

_Padfoot_

_PS: Why do you always write to James_ and _Sirius? Why am_ I _the after-thought?_

_PPS: Prongs made Quidditch Captain, by the way, like we all knew he would. Thought you should know in advance so you can just skim over the first ¾ of his next letter. It’s all going to be complete shite anyway about how seriously he’s going to take his new position and how he’s going to give everything to the team etc, etc, etc. Nothing you haven’t heard before. He’s already started drawing up plans and writing to all the team still in school about practice and try-outs, the weirdo. He’s got diagrams and everything._

_PPPS: Debatable taste in friends aside (with the possible exception of me, anyone who can stand Regulus for more than 10 minutes at a time is a bit off), Prongs’ cousin (?) is kind of alright. Crushed him at Exploding Snap last night until someone nearly put a hole in the carpet. (Wasn’t actually me, this time.) Decent enough bloke, I think. Prongs still won’t talk to him though._

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Monday 4 th August 1975**

**SKIRMISH IN ILKLEY, 10 DEAD, PARAMILITARIES SUSPECTED**

 

**by R. Jones**

 

Ilkley, Yorkshire, saw its third major incident this year early on the morning of the 3rd of August.

The half-Muggle, half-Magical village has recently been a target of various extremist and paramilitary groups, often with a sobering body-count to show for it.

Yesterday was no exception, and so far 5 Muggles, 2 Witches, 2 Wizards, and a Squib have been pronounced dead.

Amongst those ten were four children, killed by falling debris. Aurors are still looking for culprits, and a vigil will be held from sunset to sunrise tonight in the village square.

All are welcome.

 

 

**6 th August 1975**

 

**(To Sirius, From Regulus)**

 

/naught nn, ///./|/////

 

_ what does it look like? _

 

 

**13 th August 1975**

 

**(To Regulus, From Harry)**

 

_Regulus,_

_Hope you’re well. How are you? Are you doing much? I’m sorry for what I called you in my note in July- I didn’t really mean it, I was just angry. Not much is happening over here. I’m spending all of my time either doing tests at Hogwarts, or else studying for those tests. They’re alright- I don’t think I’ve failed anything, at least. Boring enough, though._

_It’s mostly just me and Monty and Effie over here- the other two are over at Remus’ this week and Peter’s the week after, or else it’s the other way around. I don’t mind too much, to be honest. Monty’s trying to show me how to brew potions properly- I’m pretty awful at a lot of the harder ones. It’s a little bit lonely over here sometimes. I’m still waiting for that Quidditch match, incidentally._

_I’ve got to go now- my Charms practical is this afternoon and Effie wants to get me fitted for new school robes first._

_All the best,_

_Harry_

 

 

**Healer’s Herald                                                               Sunday, 10 th August 1975                                                                                    Issue 103.**

 

Respected Charms Specialist and Healer **Victoria Embers** (best known for the creation of **Ember’s Magical Sight** ) says the results of the recent **Somerset Trials** may be ‘revolutionary’ in treating and possibly eradicating the worst diseases of our society, including, for the first time, **lycanthropy.**

 

For more on **Victoria Embers** and **Ember’s Magical Sight** , turn to page 4.

For more on the **Somerset Trials** , turn to page 6.

For more on current treatments for **lycanthropy** , turn to page 9.

 

**July 1995**

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Sunday, 9 th July 1995**

**BREAK-IN AT MINISTRY OF MAGIC**

 

**Department of Mysteries Breached**

 

**by J Macmillan**

 

Night staff at the Ministry of Magic reported a break-in in the late hours of last night and early this morning.

Very little is known about the trespasser's identity or motives- he or she is believed to have been underneath an Invisibility Cloak or heavy Disillusionment Charm at the time.

The trespasser entered the Ministry through the visitor’s entrance on Fetter Lane, attacked Ministry staff with a distinctive snowy owl- believed to have been a familiar or Conjured- and stopped temporarily at every floor.

The trespasser spent the most time deep within the Department of Mysteries.

The Unspeakables’ spokesperson- who wished to remain anonymous- declined all comment but to reassure us that nothing had been stolen or tampered with.

Aurors are currently investigating.

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Sunday, 16 th July 1995**

**BOY-WHO-LIVED MISSING- NO FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED AS OF YET**

 

**Ministry Starts Search For Missing Teen**

 

**by C Wrede**

 

Harry Potter- Boy-Who-Lived, Gryffindor Seeker, and most recently TriWizard Tournament Champion- has officially been declared missing by the Missing Persons Office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Potter, 14, was last seen early on the morning of the 8th of July in a predominantly Muggle area of Surrey.

No foul play is suspected at this time, though the Missing Persons Office has begun to circulate posters in the appeal for information on Potter’s location.

If you or a friend believe that you have seen Harry Potter any time since the morning of the 8th of July, please do not hesitate to contact the Missing Persons Office immediately.

Potter’s relatives could not be reached for comment.

 

 

**18 th July 1995**

 

**(To Harry, From Ron)**

 

_Harry,_

_Where are you? Mum’s worried sick. I know you needed to get away from the Muggles, but you could’ve at least_ said _something first. Snuffles wanted to start a search party as soon as he heard. He’s not allowed but if you don’t get back here soon he just might._

_Listen, if you can at all, write me back with how you are, at least. At the moment they care a bit more about you being alright than you not being with your aunt and uncle. Moody’s fuming- we’re all trying to argue your case but he’s not having any of it. Try and let Kingsley be the one to find you, yeah?_

_Write me back soon,_

_Ron_

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Monday, 24 th July 1995**

**AURORS AND MLEP ‘STUMPED’ OVER POTTER CASE**

 

‘ **Abduction seems more and more likely,’ says Head Auror Scrimgeour**

 

 

**25 th July 1995**

 

**(To Harry, From Hermione)**

 

_Dear Harry,_

_Please come home. Please write back. Please just do_ something _~~anything~~ so we know you’re alright. I know it’s unlikely that you’ll get this letter if all the owls before it couldn’t find you, but I’m ~~getting desperate~~ hopeful about this one. We all are. _

_I miss you. Ron misses you. We all miss you so, so, much. I’ve been researching locator spells- I even tried my hand at_ scrying, _of all things!- but they’re all coming up blank. Where are you?_

 _If you’re keeping up with the news at all, you know all the terrible theories they’re trying to pass off as truth._ ~~Please say that they’re wrong.~~ You’d think that these adults- these so-called professionals!- _would show a bit more tact, wouldn’t you? Then again, maybe Skeeter wasn’t the exception to the rule after all._

_They’re starting a search party tomorrow- a proper, honest-to-God, search party. They’ve got some of your clothes from your aunt for Snuffles to sniff and some of the top missing-persons Aurors are being pulled off the Sirius Black case to look for you._

~~_Please just come home._ ~~

~~_I’m scared._ ~~

_~~Please be alright.~~ _

~~_I heard Ron crying last night._ ~~

~~_I think Snuffles might be going mad._ ~~

~~_I can’t sleep._ ~~

_Love,_

_Hermione_

 

 

**31 st  July 1995 **

 

**(To Harry, From Sirius)**

 

_Happy 15 th  birthday, Harry. I wish that I could find you- your mum’ll kill me when she hears that I lost you. Moony says hello. ~~I know you’re not dead, you little shit. Just write back.~~ _

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Tuesday, 22 nd August 1995**

**POTTER MISSING SIX WEEKS- IS HOPE BEGINNING TO FADE?**

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Friday, 25 th August 1995**

**REWARD FOR SAFE RETURN OF HARRY POTTER INCREASED TO 50,000 GALLEONS**

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Friday, 1 st September 1995**

**HARRY POTTER STILL MISSING, FRIENDS AND RELATIVES STILL REFUSE TO COMMENT**

 

‘ **It’s not looking good,’ says Minister Fudge re Potter disappearance**

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Monday, 8 th January 1996**

**MINISTRY BEGS PUBLIC TO KEEP LOOKING FOR HARRY POTTER**

 

‘ **We must not give up hope, not a day later, not a week later, not even six months later,’ says Minister Fudge**

 

 

**The Daily Prophet**

**Thursday, 4 th July 1996**

**A YEAR OF TORMENT: ANNIVERSARY OF POTTER DISAPPEARANCE APPROACHES**

 

‘ **I think we all like to believe that somewhere out there Harry Potter is safe and well,’ says Minister Scrimgeour**

 


End file.
